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The Double Ninth Festival

The ninth day of the ninth lunar month is the Double Ninth Festival. Because ancient of “YiJing”, “six” is regarded as ying, “nine” is regarded as yang, and the ninth day of the ninth month is a double young day, hence the name Chong Yang, also Chong Jiu. The ancients think is it auspicious day which is worth congratulating, and from very early they had started to celebrate this holiday.
The celebration activity of the Double Ninth Festival is romantic, including generally travel to enjoy the scenery, climb mountains to get a distant view, appreciate chrysanthemum flowers, eat double-ninth cakes, hang dogwood sprays, and drink chrysanthemum wine and so on. The places such Shanghai’s Songjiang County, ShenShan and big rockery of Yu Garden all become the paradise to climb.
The Double Ninth Festival, because of the same pronunciation of “forever“ in Chinese, nine is the largest in the number with the meaning of the long-time longevity, so the Double Ninth Festival is also the “Old Men Festival“ to show the respect, reverence, love and help for old people.

Qixi Festival

The seventh day of the seventh lunar month, is named “Qixi Festival”, also called “Qi Qiao Jie” or “Maid Festival”. It is the most romantic festival in Chinese traditional festivals, which is equal to the Valentine’s Day on February 14.
The story is told that a cowherd boy Niu Lang and Zhi Nu fell in love madly, but because the mortal and the fairy couldn’t get married, the Queen of Heaven delimited a Milky Way with the silver hairpin between them. Two people henceforth lived far apart; only could meet on a bridge of magpies across the Milky Way at the night of the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.
Zhi Nu is a beautiful, intelligent, and deft fairy. So female mortals begs the wisdom and the skillful skill to her in the evening, also asks to bestow the happy marriage, therefore the seventh day of July is also called “the praying for skill festival”.
On each Qixi Festival, many flower shops on Internet will provide you good service in all aspects.
Mid-Autumn Festival
Chinese people attach most importance to the traditional holiday, the Mid-Autumn Festival. It is said that the moon is the roundest on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month every year. Therefore the family members get together to eat moon cakes, and enjoy the moon.
It is said that many Shanghainese like to go to the land stone bridge outside the small east gate to watch the month shade to ripple under the bridge. “the moon under the stone bridges“ then is one of “Shanghai Eight Sceneries”. From Mid-Autumn Festival to 18th, many people also can go to the east city to enjoy rivers and lakes, and go to Zhejiang Haining to watch the tide. In recent years, Shanghai also held “Sweet-Scented Osmanthus Festival” in the Mid-Autumn Festival, with various kinds of theatrical performances.

Qingming Festival

Qingming Day, the 15th day of the 3rd lunar month, is the most important sacrificial offering holiday, and also a day, which the common people worship ancestors and sweep the graves. Sweeping the graves is also called grave visiting, is the kind of activity to do sacrificial offering for the dead. Because in Shanghai many residents bury family members in the cities around Shanghai, every year of Qingming Festival, and many Shanghai residents can go to other cities with the whole family to sweep the graves. In recent two years, every year, more than 1.3 million residents go to Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces to go for a walk in the countryside and sweep the graves.
In order to alleviate the traffic pressure, and sweep the graves in civilized way, now “memorize online” website receives the Shanghai resident’s welcome. Many residents will paste pictures and the life story of passed family members on the net. This enables people to sweep the graves without going out.

Lantern Festival

wo weeks after the Spring Festival, the 15th day of the 1st lunar month is the “Lantern Festival”, which is also called “Yuan Xiao”. The Lantern Festival is considered as a grand occasion. At this time, people will eat wontons, and glutinous rice ball (also called Tangyuan). In the evening, it is the best opportunity to appreciate the decorative lanterns. The decorative lanterns can be seen everywhere in the city, and the most famous place is Chenghuang Temple. At that night, the huge crowds of people go there to appreciate the lanterns. There are thousands of colorful lanterns hung out everywhere. The name is “farmland blessing lantern”, also is the omen of harvest. “Dragon lamp dance” is a lively festival performance in suburban counties, which is most popular in the west and south suburbs, especially in Jiading. The performance is accompanied with ten percussion instruments. Sometimes ten dragon lanterns get together to perform the Dagon Ball snatch.

New Year’s Eve and Spring Festival

The Lunar New Year’s Eve, also called the “Last Thirtieth in a Year ”or “Lunar New Year”. It refers to the lunar calendar on the last night of the old year. In order to discard the old for the new, people usually clean and decorate their houses, buy some narcissus flowers, calyx canthus, and geranium to insert in the bottle to increase festival atmosphere, and prepare things to celebrates the holiday (food, goods), paste festive New-Year picture at home and the blessing couplets on the doorframe. In the evening, the family will get together to enjoy New Year supper, also is called the “family reunion dinner”, with extreme sumptuous dishes.
At night, the residents usually watch Spring Festival Party at home on TV, or gather at some lively road sections such as Huaihai Road, Nanjing Road and so on to celebrate the joyful lunar New Year’s Eve. With the ding of bell and firecrackers, the New Year comes. In order to guarantee the safety of residents, it is forbidden to set off firecrackers in downtown, and the residents may celebrate Spring Festival joyfully in other ways.
Chinese people attach most importance to Spring Festival, and you can feel the happy atmosphere everywhere. The first day of first lunar month is Chinese tradition new year. Before dawn, everyone dresses neatly. The entire family pays New Year’s call to the elder. Between the people of the same generation, the relatives and friends pay New Year’s call mutually. The elders also give children lucky money in red packet to congratulate on their increasing a year old. Now the communication technology has been developed, many people send New Year’s wishes by using the cell phones to send short message or the net to send the electronic greeting card.

Traditional Festivals
Besides nationally established “May First Festival”(International Labor Day), “October First Festival” (National Day), New Year’s Day (New Year), there are some traditional holidays with characteristics. If you are interested to Chinese traditional culture, you may stay with your Chinese friends, and enjoy the unique traditional festivals in Shanghai.

Modern Festivals

hanghai is a stage for the whole world. Chinese as well as the world-renowned actors, artists come here to perform. Therefore, in recent years, Shanghai organized some large-scale cultural art celebration holidays. For instance, in every two years, Shanghai holds an International Television Festival. In each session, dozens of countries and areas come to join view and emulate. The International Film Festival held in every summer in Shanghai is not only collects the excellent works in the world, but also converges the global most dazzling movie stars. It belongs to the A-level film festivals in the world. Shanghai International Art Festival is also held once every two years. It is generally arranged in October of golden autumn. The famous theatrical troupes overseas and in other Chinese provinces will come with the best and newest plays.

Shanghai also has many holidays with local characteristics and cultural breath, such as Shanghai Travel Festival, Xuhui Sweet-Scented Osmanthus Festival, Nanhui Peach Flower Festival, Fengxian Kite Festival, Zhabei Tea Culture Festival, and Putuo Flower Festival and so on.