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Double Ninth cake tradition continues
By Xu Zhangqian |
September 26, 2011, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
IN my childhood the Double Ninth Festival, which honors seniors, was the only day to eat Double Ninth (Chongyang) cake. Every year for the festival, my parents would buy a big portion of the cake and cut it into slices. They often gave some slices of cake to elderly neighbors who lived nearby to show respect.
Double Ninth cake is different from other festival foods like zongzi (traditional Chinese food made of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves) and streamed buns. The Double Ninth cake is not associated with any legendary story. The cake is usually made with nuts, jujubes and lard oil, and I don't know how it became a symbol of respect for seniors. To be honest, the cake is high in sugar and gets stuck in the teeth easily, which makes it not that suitable for older people.
Also, other festival foods like tangyuan (glutinous rice balls) for the Spring Festival, zongzi for the Dragon Boat Festival and mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival are all mass produced in industrial production lines nowadays and can be bought at any time of the year. But Double Ninth cake is still made in traditional way and is usually available for a short period.
In the old times, Double Ninth Festival was an important family reunion day. Young people living far away would come back to their hometown to see their parents and grandparents. For those who were not able to come back, the other family members would climb to the top of the hill nearby to look far into the distance, expecting them come back soon. The famous poet Wang Wei in the Dang Dynasty (AD 618-907) wrote a poem to show his homesickness, entitled as "Missing my brothers on the Double Nine Day." It says: "All alone in a foreign land, I am twice as homesick on this day. When brothers climb up the hill, each of them plants a dogwood except me." Nowadays, transportations are quite convenient, the festival today seems to leave us nothing else but cakes.
Double Ninth cake is different from other festival foods like zongzi (traditional Chinese food made of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves) and streamed buns. The Double Ninth cake is not associated with any legendary story. The cake is usually made with nuts, jujubes and lard oil, and I don't know how it became a symbol of respect for seniors. To be honest, the cake is high in sugar and gets stuck in the teeth easily, which makes it not that suitable for older people.
Also, other festival foods like tangyuan (glutinous rice balls) for the Spring Festival, zongzi for the Dragon Boat Festival and mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival are all mass produced in industrial production lines nowadays and can be bought at any time of the year. But Double Ninth cake is still made in traditional way and is usually available for a short period.
In the old times, Double Ninth Festival was an important family reunion day. Young people living far away would come back to their hometown to see their parents and grandparents. For those who were not able to come back, the other family members would climb to the top of the hill nearby to look far into the distance, expecting them come back soon. The famous poet Wang Wei in the Dang Dynasty (AD 618-907) wrote a poem to show his homesickness, entitled as "Missing my brothers on the Double Nine Day." It says: "All alone in a foreign land, I am twice as homesick on this day. When brothers climb up the hill, each of them plants a dogwood except me." Nowadays, transportations are quite convenient, the festival today seems to leave us nothing else but cakes.
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