Astronomy has been a concern for the ancient Chinese. It is interesting to look at how they developed a culture for astronomy and astrology. 2500 years ago they were observing movements of the sun with a sundial. This is how they determined the point of Winter Solstice, the time being 21 or 22 of December. As ancient Chinese thought, the yang, or muscular, positive things will become stronger after this day, so it should be celebrated.
The Winter Solstice became a festival during the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD).
They were organizing celebrating activities. Both officials and common people would have a rest and the army was stationed in, frontier fortresses closed and business and traveling stopped.
In the Tang and Song dynasties, the Winter Solstice was a time for honoring the ancestors. As the emperors would worship the Heaven in this day, common people offered sacrifices to their deceased relatives.

The Winter Solstice is nowadays a time of family gathering. Some say that if you eat dumpling soup on this day, it will keep you from frosting in the upcoming winter. In parts of South China, the whole family will get together to have a meal made of red-bean and glutinous rice to drive away ghosts and other evil things. In other places, people also eat tangyuan, a kind of stuffed small dumpling ball made of glutinous rice flour. The Winter Solstice rice dumplings could be used as sacrifices to ancestors, or gifts for friends and relatives. The Taiwan people even keep the custom of offering nine-layer cakes to their ancestors. They make cakes in the shape of chicken, duck, tortoise, pig, cow or sheep (each with its own significance) with glutinous rice flour and steam them on different layers of a pot. People of the same surname or family clan gather at their ancestral temples to worship their ancestors in age order. After the sacrificial ceremony, there is always a grand banquet.

Sunday June 21, 2009 from 10:00am - 3:00pm
Vasona Lake County Park
333 Blossom Hill Road
Los Gatos, California 95032

Get on your mark, get set, and QUACK! at the Silicon Valley Duck Race, hosted by Jewish Family Services (JFS). What a great way to celebrate Father's Day and help your community by adopting ducks that will race to the finish line for charity. To "adopt" a duck for only $5, and a chance to win fabulous prizes, possibly even $1,000,000!,

visit http://www.siliconvalleyduckrace.org or call JFS at 408-556-0600.

Schedule:

10:00am: Free Family Festival begins (food, entertainment, family activities)
11:30am: Preliminary heat
1:30pm: Main Duck Race
3:00pm: Festival Ends

Parking: There is plenty of free parking on the adjacent streets to Vasona Park. There will also be several free parking lots reserved at local businesses and a free shuttle. The county charges $6 to park at Vasona Lake Park. For info on the free shuttle and a parking map,

visit http://www.siliconvalleyduckrace.org/race_locationmap.html

July 11 -July 12, 2009

Corn Hill Arts Festival

Rochester, New York

Rochester's Premier Fine Arts Festival with 4 Stages of Continuous Live Music and Much More Entertainment.

Estimated attendees: 250000

Phone: 585-461-1570

The Chinese Moon Festival is on the 15th of the 8th lunar month. It's also known as the Mid-autumn Festival. Chinese culture is deeply imbedded in traditional festivals. Just like Christmas and Thanksgiving in the West, the Moon Festival is one of the most important traditional events for the Chinese.

The Moon Festival is full of legendary stories. Legend says that Chang Er flew to the moon, where she has lived ever since. You might see her dancing on the moon during the Moon Festival. The Moon Festival is also an occasion for family reunions. When the full moon rises, families get together to watch the full moon, eat moon cakes, and sing moon poems. With the full moon, the legend, the family and the poems, you can't help thinking that this is really a perfect world. That is why the Chinese are so fond of the Moon Festival.

The Moon Festival is also a romantic one. A perfect night for the festival is if it is a quiet night without a silk of cloud and with a little mild breeze from the sea. Lovers spend such a romatic night together tasting the delicious moon cake with some wine while watching the full moon. Even for a couple who can't be together, they can still enjoy the night by watching the moon at the same time so it seems that they are together at that hour. A great number of poetry has been devoted to this romantic festival. Hope the Moon Festival will bring you happiness.

The moon cake is the food for the Moon Festival. The Chinese eat the moon cake at night with the full moon in the sky. Here are a few pictures of the typical moon cake.

The 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese lunar calendar is celebrated by Chinese around the world as the Mid-Autumn Festival or 中秋节 (Zhong Qiu Jie). The holiday always coincides with a bright full autumn moon.

Like many Chinese holidays, food plays a prominent role. On this day, Chinese will eat nian gao or glutenous rice cakes and mooncake, made up of bean paste or lotus-seed paste packed inside a pastry layer. There is sometimes even a salted duck egg inside.

Many Chinese will admit that they don't really like eating mooncake, but like the fruitcake at Christmas, giving the gift of mooncake seems to be a case of tradition beating out taste.

The Fable of the Woman in the Moon:
The holiday is all about tradition. And like so many festivals, it begins with a fable. The story has many, many versions, but the one I was taught as a child goes like this:

In ancient China, there wasn't just one sun in the sky. There were ten. The ten suns burned so bright that no crops would grow and the people began to starve. In this time of crisis one man, rose to the challenge. The archer Hou Yi was well known for his skill with a bow and arrow. With support from his wife Chang'e, he shot down the suns, one by one. Just as he was about to shoot down the last one, his wife stopped him. The people and plants still need light to prosper, she said.

People across the land were so happy that their suffering had ended and they crowned Ho Yi their king. At first, Ho Yi was a very good king, ruling fairly and with heart. But he soon became despotic, killing without cause and ruling tyrannically, to the dismay of Chang'e.

Hou Yi's ultimate fear was death and he became obsessed with immortality. So he sought out a witch doctor, who provided him with a pill that would allow him to live forever. When Hou Yi's wife, Chang'e found out about his plan, she knew she had to stop him.

At night, as Hou Yi slept, she crept to the place where the king had hidden the pill. Just then, her husband awoke and demanded to know what she was doing. Without a thought, Chang'e swallowed the pill and suddenly began to fly up into the twilight, until she reached the full moon. And that is where she remains today.

If you look closely at the autumn full moon, you will see her there, a pure and shining example of personal sacrifice for a greater purpose.

Some Truth Behind the Tale:
It's an old tale, depictions of Hou Yi shooting down the suns has been found on Han Dynasty (206 BCE - 9 CE) tomb murals. The story is both a parable about the dangers of gaining power and the heroism of sacrifice. But Dartmouth College professor Sarah Allan believes it may be based in some reality.

In her 1991 book The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art and Cosmos in Early China Allan posits that the myth of the ten suns was a strong beliefs of the Shang Dynasty (1600 BCE - 1046 BCE).

Allan hypothesizes that the Shang Kingdom's ruling group was organized in a totemic relationship with these ten suns. The myth became synonymous with their rule. When the Shang fell to the Zhou Dynasty (1046 BCE - 771 BCE), which believed in one single sun, the archer myth of Hou Yi was used to illustrate an end to Shang rule.

It's a fascinating hypothesis. And great food for thought as we watch the Mid-Autumn full moon fade away.

Source: chineseculture.about.com

Western Legends Round Up

Aug 26 -Aug 29, 2009
Kanab, Utah

Utahs Biggest & Best Wild West Cowboy Fest. Hollywood Stars & Entertainment!

Call for ticket information (435)644-3444!