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Chrysanthemum Day
The Double Ninth Festival (''Chong Yang Festival'' or ''Chung Yeung Festival'' in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan; ; ''Jungyangjeol'' (Hangul: , Hanja: ), observed on the ninth day of the ninth month in the Chinese calendar, is a traditional Chinese holiday, mentioned in writings since before the Eastern Han period (before AD 25). According to the '' I Ching'', ''nine'' is a yang number; the ninth day of the ninth month in the Chinese calendar (or double nine) has too much ''yang'' (a traditional Chinese spiritual concept) and is thus a potentially very auspicious date. Hence, the day is also called "Double Yang Festival" (). It is customary to climb a high mountain, drink chrysanthemum liquor, and wear the ''zhuyu'' () plant ''Cornus officinalis''. (Both chrysanthemum and ''zhuyu'' are considered to have cleansing qualities and are used on other occasions to air out houses and cure illnesses.) On this holiday, some Chinese also visit the graves of their ances ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Han Chinese
The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive varieties of the Chinese language. The estimated 1.4 billion Han Chinese people, worldwide, are primarily concentrated in the People's Republic of China (including Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau) where they make up about 92% of the total population. In the Republic of China (Taiwan), they make up about 97% of the population. People of Han Chinese descent also make up around 75% of the total population of Singapore. Originating from Northern China, the Han Chinese trace their cultural ancestry to the Huaxia, the confederation of agricultural tribes living along the Yellow River. This collective Neolithic confederation included agricultural tribes Hua and Xia, hence the name. They settled along the Central Plains around the middle and lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suckling Pig
A suckling pig is a piglet fed on its mother's milk (i.e., a piglet which is still a " suckling"). In culinary contexts, a suckling pig is slaughtered between the ages of two and six weeks. It is traditionally cooked whole, often roasted, in various cuisines. It is usually prepared for special occasions and gatherings. The most popular preparation can be found in Spain and Portugal under the name ''lechón'' (Spanish) or ''leitão'' (Portuguese). The meat from suckling pig is pale and tender and the cooked skin is crisp and can be used for pork rinds. The texture of the meat can be somewhat gelatinous due to the amount of collagen in a young pig. History There are many ancient recipes for suckling pig from Roman and Chinese cuisine. Since the pig is one of the first animals domesticated by human beings for slaughter, many references to pigs are found in human culture. The suckling pig, specifically, appears in early texts such as the sixth-century Salic law. As an example o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qingming Festival
The Qingming festival or Ching Ming Festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day in English (sometimes also called Chinese Memorial Day or Ancestors' Day), is a traditional Chinese festival observed by the Han Chinese of mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau, and by the ethnic Chinese of Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Panama. It falls on the first day of the fifth solar term of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar. This makes it the 15th day after the Spring Equinox, either 4, 5 or 6 April in a given year. During Qingming, Chinese families visit the tombs of their ancestors to clean the gravesites, pray to their ancestors and make ritual offerings. Offerings would typically include traditional food dishes and the burning of joss sticks and joss paper. The holiday recognizes the traditional reverence of one's ancestors in Chinese culture. The Qingming Festival has been observed by the Chinese for over 2500 years, althou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qixi Festival
The Qixi Festival ( zh, 七夕), also known as the Qiqiao Festival ( zh, 七巧, links=no), is a Chinese festival celebrating the annual meeting of The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, Zhinü and Niulang in Chinese mythology... The festival is celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh lunisolar month on the Chinese lunisolar calendar... The festival was derived from Chinese mythology. People celebrated for the romantic legend of two lovers, Zhinü and Niulang, who were the weaver girl and the cowherd, respectively. The tale of ''The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl'' has been celebrated in the Qixi Festival since the Han dynasty.. The earliest-known reference to this famous myth dates back to over 2600 years ago, which was told in a poem from the ''Classic of Poetry''.. The Qixi festival inspired the Tanabata festival in Japan, Chilseok festival in Korea, and :vi:Thất Tịch, Thất Tịch festival in Vietnam. The festival has variously been called the Double Seventh Festival, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hinamatsuri
, also called Doll's Day or Girls' Day, is a religious (Shinto) holiday in Japan, celebrated on 3March of each year. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric (2005)"Hina Matsuri"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 313. Platforms covered with a red carpet–material are used to display a set of representing the Emperor, Empress, attendants, and musicians in traditional court dress of the Heian period. Customs is one of the that are held on auspicious dates of the Chinese calendar: the first day of the first month, the third day of the third month, and so on. After the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, these were fixed on 1January, 3March, 5May, 7July, and 9September. The festival was traditionally known as the , as peach trees typically began to flower around this time. Although this is no longer true since the shift to Gregorian dates, the name remains and peaches are still symbolic of the festival. The primary aspect of is the display of seated male and female dolls (the and ), wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mochi
is a Japanese rice cake made of , a short-grain japonica glutinous rice, and sometimes other ingredients such as water, sugar, and cornstarch. The rice is pounded into paste and molded into the desired shape. In Japan, it is traditionally made in a ceremony called . While eaten year-round, mochi is a traditional food for the Japanese New Year, and is commonly sold and eaten during that time. Mochi is a multicomponent food consisting of polysaccharides, lipids, protein, and water. Mochi has a heterogeneous structure of amylopectin gel, starch grains, and air bubbles. The rice used for mochi has a negligible amylose content and a high amylopectin level, producing a gel-like consistency. The protein content of the japonica rice used to make mochi is higher than that of standard short-grain rice. Mochi is similar to , but is made by pounding grains of rice, while dango is made with rice flour. History The process of steaming glutinous rice and making it into a paste is consid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Takikomi Gohan
''Takikomi gohan'' (炊き込みご飯, 炊き込み御飯) is a Japanese rice dish seasoned with dashi and soy sauce along with mushrooms, vegetables, meat, or fish. The ingredients of ''takikomi gohan'' are cooked with the rice. This dish is consumed by people in Japan around the fall season since many root vegetables and mushrooms are harvested during this season in Japan. Ingredients will vary based on the seasonal vegetables and fish. Since this dish contains nutritional value, and uses a small amount of rice with vegetables and proteins, some Japanese people eat it for dieting purposes. History was created during the Nara period. Rice was scarce then, so people conserved rice by adding millet or other cerials, wild vegetables, yam or Japanese radish, creating an early form of called . During the Muromachi period, became popular, turned into a dish called using ingredients such as barley, beans, and vegetables. Over time people became creative and made a variety of dis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sake
Sake, also spelled saké ( ; also referred to as Japanese rice wine), is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indeed any East Asian rice wine (such as huangjiu and cheongju), is produced by a brewing process more akin to that of beer, where starch is converted into sugars which ferment into alcohol, whereas in wine, alcohol is produced by fermenting sugar that is naturally present in fruit, typically grapes. The brewing process for sake differs from the process for beer, where the conversion from starch to sugar and then from sugar to alcohol occurs in two distinct steps. Like other rice wines, when sake is brewed, these conversions occur simultaneously. The alcohol content differs between sake, wine, and beer; while most beer contains 3–9% ABV, wine generally contains 9–16% ABV, and undiluted sake contains 18–20% ABV (although this is often ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gregorian Calendar
The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It was introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years differently so as to make the average calendar year 365.2425 days long, more closely approximating the 365.2422-day 'tropical' or 'solar' year that is determined by the Earth's revolution around the Sun. The rule for leap years is: There were two reasons to establish the Gregorian calendar. First, the Julian calendar assumed incorrectly that the average solar year is exactly 365.25 days long, an overestimate of a little under one day per century, and thus has a leap year every four years without exception. The Gregorian reform shortened the average (calendar) year by 0.0075 days to stop the drift of the calendar with respect to the equinoxes.See Wikisource English translation of the (Latin) 1582 papal bull '' Inter gravissimas''. Second, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Free Dictionary
''The Free Dictionary'' is an American online dictionary and encyclopedia that aggregates information from various sources. Content The site cross-references the contents of ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', the ''Collins English Dictionary'', the ''Columbia Encyclopedia'', the ''Computer Desktop Encyclopedia'', the ''Hutchinson Encyclopedia'' (subscription), and Wikipedia, as well as the Acronym Finder database, several financial dictionaries, legal dictionaries, and other content. It has a feature that allows a user to preview an article while positioning the mouse cursor over a link. One can also double-click on any word to look it up in the dictionary. Site operator The site is run by Farlex, Inc., located in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania. Farlex also maintains a companion title, ''The Free Library'', an online library of out-of-copyright classic books as well as a collection of periodicals of over four million articles dating back to 1984, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year is the festival that celebrates the beginning of a New Year, new year on the traditional lunisolar calendar, lunisolar and solar Chinese calendar. In Sinophone, Chinese and other East Asian cultures, the festival is commonly referred to as the Spring Festival () as the Spring (season), spring season in the lunisolar calendar traditionally starts with lichun, the first of the twenty-four solar terms which the festival celebrates around the time of the Chinese New Year. Marking the end of winter and the beginning of the spring season, observances traditionally take place from Chinese New Year's Eve, New Year’s Eve, the evening preceding the first day of the year to the Lantern Festival, held on the 15th day of the year. The first day of Chinese New Year begins on the new moon that appears between 21 January and 20 February. Chinese New Year is one of the most important holidays in Chinese culture, and has strongly influenced Lunar New Year celebrations of its 5 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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