摘要
THE Double Nine Festival,which falls on theninth day of the ninth lunar month,is anancient tradition among Han Chinese.TheBook of Changes,a famous classic in ancient China,designates the number 9 as yang(the masculine orpositive principle in nature).Thus Double Nine isknown as Chongyang in Chinese,meaning doubleyang.In The Western Capital Miscellancy,Ge Hong(281-341)of the Eastern Jin Dynasty described onetraditional custom of the Western Han Dynasty (206B.C.-A.D.24):″Wearing medicinal comel (Cornusofficinalis),eating double yang cake and drinking chry-santhemum wine on the ninth day of the ninth lunarmonth all help to prolong life.″Therefore the DoubleNine Festival is also celebrated as a festival for the old.People often wear medicinal cornel and climb to ahigh place to drink chrysanthemum wine.The customcomes from a legend:Huan Jing was a student ofnecromancer Fei Changfang in the Eastern Han Dy-nasty (25-220). One day Fei warned Huan that thelatter’s family was in danger of suffering a diaster
