"MINORI" – harvest

Japan

In the past, the chokai and its women's group sponsored parties for elderly residents on this national holiday. In recent years, this practice has stopped due to the poor health which prevents many of the old people from attending. Instead, the chokai and the fujinbu now present a gift to every resident over the age of seventy.

Source:   Neighborhood Tokyo by Theodore C. Bestor. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 1989, p. 158.

Circa September 21-22
Higan/Jugowa (Autumnal Equinox)

In the Northern Hemisphere, the Autumnal Equinox occurs around September 22. After this date, the nights are longer than the days. In the Southern Hemisphere, the reverse is true and spring commences.

Japan
Higan

At this time graves are visited and ancestors are honored. Buddhist temples hold services in honor of the dead, and memorial tablets of the household ancestors are taken out of the storehouse and honored with special household rituals.

Source:   Japanese Festivals by Helen Bauer and Sherwin Carlquist. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965, p. 190.

Village Japan by Richard K. Beardsley, John W. Jall and Robert E. Ward. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1958, p. 455.

Paper money is made for the dead using coin impressions. Providing pocket money for the dead by taping an impression of a coin on a strip of paper is now practiced only by the very old. Prayers are offered along with a meal of rice, dyed pink, fish fritters, and sake.

Source:   Studies of Okinawan Village Life by Clarence J. Clacken. Scientific Investigations in the Ryukyu Islands (SIRI) Report no. 4. Washington D.C.: Pacific Science Board Council, 1953, pp. 324-325.

Moon 9, Day 9

Double Ninth/Chrysanthemum Day/Festival of the Nine Imperial Gods/Double-Yang

Taiwan
Double-Yang

This day is called "Double-Yang" because the number "9" is a special number dedicated to the "yang" principle of the sun. So this day is also called the "double ninth."

This is connected with a story from the later Han Dynasty about a famous magician and hero-doctor named Fei Ch'ang-fang (A.D. 25-2220) and his friend and disciple, Huan Ch'ing. One day Fei told Huan that on the ninth day of the ninth month he and his entire family would be destroyed unless they went up to a high mountain and brought with them the berries from the pepper-acacia tree. Huan obeyed, and when he returned to his house in the evening, he found that everything that had remained in the house, including the livestock, had all been killed.

The common man gives a banquet on this day and many go for a walk or picnic in the hills. The main purpose of the day is to "drink wine and enjoy from a mountain top." The day is also called the "Climbing up on high" festival.

Source:   Taiwan Feasts and Customs by Michael R. Saso. Hsincu, Taiwan: Chabanel Language Institute, pp. 72-73.

Japan

Chrysanthemum Day

This is one of the five sacred festivals of ancient Japan. A wondrous display of chrysanthemum varieties was held on this day. Figures of trained chrysanthemums are displayed, chrysanthemum wine is drunk and, in Korea, chrysanthemum cakes are eaten.

An interesting custom associated with this festival is that of putting cotton wool on the chrysanthemum flowers on the eve of the festival day. The next morning the cotton, now wet with either dew or frost, is removed and the body wiped with it. This is known as "cotton nursing of the chrysanthemum" and shows the desire both to protect the flowers and to use the dew of the early frosts to cure the ailments of mankind.

Source:   Japanese Festival and Calendar Lore by William Hugh Erskine. Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1933, pp. 109-110.

Korea

On the ninth day of the Ninth Moon, people in every house eat chrysanthemum cakes, a kind of dumpling made from mixing yellow chrysanthemum petals with rice and flour. Honey water, with mandarin oranges, pears, pomegranates, and pinenuts floating in it, is drunk. Many go to view the crimson maple leaves.

Source:   Folk Customs and Family Life by Tae Hung Ha. Seoul, Korea: Yonsei, 1958, p. 37.

Okinawa

A minor holiday, a chrysanthemum is put in sake and the flask is placed on the god shelf. A leaf of the plant is put in the sake when it is drunk. People at this time wish one another good health.

Source:   Studies of Okinawan Village Lifee by Clarene J. Clacken. Scientific Investigations in the Ryuku Islands (SIRI) Report no. 4. Washington, D.C.: Pacific Science Board Council, 1953, p. 326.

Singapore
Festival of the Nine Imperial Gods

In China in the past, on this day people would fast and climb mountains to cleanse themselves from whatever evil had gotten attached to them during the preceding year. For centuries, Chinese have upheld the belief that the Nine Imperial Gods (T'ien ying, T'ien jen, T'ien chu, T'ien hsin, T'ien ch'in, T'ien fu, T'iend ch'ung, T'ien jui, and T'ien p'eng) reside in the northern heavens, each on one of the seven stars of the Big Dipper with the remaining two gods on the two nearby invisible stars.

The main focus of activities is the festival where devotees keep a vegetarian diet for one to twelve days. The first day is marked by a procession to a river or the sea to "fetch the Nine Imperial Gods." (The mother of these gods was originally a water sprite.) After this ritual, devotees crowd through the temple doors. Inside the temple, food offerings are placed on the altar and some Chinese operas are performed. On the ninth day, a procession of lion dancers, stilt walkers, and musicians play drums, cymbals, and gongs. The procession is preceded by forty boys, each holding a colorful banner. The devotees carry joss sticks and board trucks, buses, cars and taxis to follow the gods. The sacred urn with the burning ashes, in which the Nine Imperial Gods are said to reside, is brought out of the temple and put on one of the sedan chairs.

The bearers of these chairs charge into the crowd, running back and forth, while devotees bathe themselves in the thick smoke coming from the hundreds of joss sticks. The chairs are then placed on trucks and everybody moves to a vacant lot where an altar has been erected and a Taoist priest waits. A chai koo ("vegetarian nun") steps in front of the priest and performs a ritual dance, resembling Tai Chi Chuan. Then the nun bids the Nine Imperial Gods farewell. The flaming urn is carried to the Serangoon River by the priest who carries a yellow tablet and leads the way. The urn is placed into the boat which the priest launches. This boat will take the gods home. After some time, if the boat has not moved, some of the fishermen leap into their boats and turn their engines, thereby churning the water and sending the gods on their way.

Source:   The Nine Imperial Gods in Singapore by Ruth-Inge Heinze in Asian Folklore Studies, XL (1) (1981), pp. 151-165.

Month 10
Ho Khao Slak

This is a time for bringing offerings to monks during their Lenten retreat. Individuals may draw the name of a specific monk to whom they bring a gift. Food, flowers, and some of the eight articles which monks are allowed to own, may be given.

Laos

Source:   Laos: A Country Study by Donald P. Whitaker et al. Foreign Area Studies. Washington, D.C.: The American University, 1971, p. 122.

October 5
Han' gul Day

This day commemorates the invention of the Korean alphabet by King Sejong in 1446. Han' gul is a 28-letter phonetic alphabet.

Korea

Observed throughout Korea, children compete for prizes in a calligraphic contest, and an annual Grand Cultural Festival is held for three days in Yoju, Koyonggi.

Source:   Celebrations: Asia and the Pacific by Gene Sawyer. Honolulu: Friends of the East-West Center, 1978, p. 75.

"Jyu-rojin" – Chinese old saint
Japanese painting by Akira Kajiura.

Wagyut Moon, Day 15 (Circa October)
Ok Pansa/Ok Vatsa/Thadingyut

This is the end of the Buddhist fasting and retreat period (Lent) and the beginning of the Kathin season. Kathins are pilgrimages to various temples to feed the monks and offer them gifts. This period of Kathins continues until the full moon of the twelfth month.

Thadinghut
Burma/Myanmar

At the end of Lent, this festival of lights marks the month of when Buddha descended to earth along a path illuminated by many lights. This comes at the end of the rainy season and is a time of celebration. Home and shops are illuminated, and tiny lighted rafts are set adrift on waters, and fireworks and fire balloons set off.

The family also takes food to the priests as they pay homage to them.

Source:   Celebrations: Asia and the Pacific by Gene Sawyer. Honolulu: Friends of the East-West Center, 1978, p.73.

Boun Ok Vatsa
Laos

The bonzes recite the patimokkha, confess their evil and careless thoughts, and leave the wat for pilgrimages. They are given new mats, robes, begging bowls, and serving sets for betel.

Also known as the Festival of the Waters, this is a time for decorating homes and the wat, for processions and for pirogue races on the rivers.

Source:   Laos: A Country Study by Donald P. Whitaker et al. Foreign Area Studies. Washington, D.C.: The American University, 1971, p. 123.

Thailand

In temples, saffron-robed priests await their gifts and food. Food is ladled of pots and kettles with no attempt to reheat since Thai food is hot in spices but never in temperature. The priests stop eating at eleven and the food remaining on their plates is scooped back into the community kettles and redistributed to the crowd. Afterwards boat races commence and last for many hours.

Source:   Mai Pen Rai Mean Never Mind by Carol Hollinger. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965, pp. 173-176.

"MINORI" and "Jyu-rojin" Japanese paintings by Akira Kajiura. To view Akira Kajiura's gallery, or for further information, please click on the banner below.