The Double Ninth Festival

As a traditional Chinese festival, the Double Ninth Festival is celebrated on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. The whole families usually go out together to go for an outing on the third day of the lunar third month, and climb mountains with relatives to avoid disasters on the Double Ninth Festival. In Book of Changes, the number six is regarded as a yin number while the number nine is regarded as a yang number. The ninth day of the ninth month, a day when two ninths meet, is also a double yang day, for which it is called Chong Yang Festival or Chong Jiu (Chong means repeat in Chinese and Jiu means number nine in English).

In Chinese, the characters Jiu Jiu 九九 (double nine in English) is homophonous with the characters Jiu Jiu 久久 (longevity in English), so this festival is given the meaning of longevity. As early as the Western Han Dynasty, there were already banquets to be given to pray for longevity. In 1989, the ninth day of the ninth lunar month was set as The Seniors’ Day to advocate the whole society to build a good social atmosphere of respecting, loving and helping the elderly people. The Double Nine Festival was included in the national lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage by the State Council on May 20th, 2006.

This festival which can be dated as early as to pre-Qin times was mentioned in Songs of Chu written in the Warring States Period (475 - 221 BC). Qu Yuan wrote in Excursions “Collect yang qi in Cloud Nine to visit the sky kingdom”. In this poem, the character Chong Yang refers to sky rather than a festival. In the period of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Pi, the emperor Weiwen, wrote the drinking party clearly in A Letter to Zhong Yao “With time going by, the ninth day of the ninth lunar month was coming again. The number nine was regarded as yang. The ninth day of the ninth month was a double Yang day, hence this festival got its name of Chong Yang Festival. The reason why the party participators were old was that this festival implied longevity”.

Tao Yuanming, a litterateur in the Jin Dynasty, wrote in the preface to A Leisured Life on the Double Ninth Festival “Now that I live a leisured life, I love the name of the Double Ninth. When autumn chrysanthemums flourish in my garden, I have no wine to drink. In face of the flowers, I write this verse to express my feelings”, in which chrysanthemums and wine are included at the same time. In the Wei and Jin dynasties, the practices of drinking and appreciating chrysanthemum flowers appeared. The Double Nine Festival was officially regarded as a folk festival by the Tang Dynasty.

By the time of the Ming Dynasty, all people in the imperial palace would eat flower cakes to celebrate the Double Ninth Festival, and the emperor would climb the Wansui Mountain himself to express his aspiration. That custom had been passed to the Qing Dynasty.