Talk:Mid-Autumn Festival/Archives 1

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Relationship to Chuseok and Tsukimi

In lieu of this edit, would saying that Chuseok and Tsukimi are Korean and Japanese (respectively) versions of the Mid-Autumn Festival hint at cultural bias? Is it akin to saying that the Mid-Autumn Festival is the Chinese version of Thanksgiving, or Hanukkah is the Jewish version of Christmas? yellowtailshark (talk) 00:04, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Given that there has been a great deal of cultural interchange between China, Korea and Japan, I would suspect you analogy of "Hanukkah is the Jewish version of Christmas" to be off. Rather it would be more like Noel is the French version of Christmas - where it is in fact the same celebration but with additional traditions added for that country. Note that they all fall on the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar for that nation. Rincewind42 (talk) 16:32, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Originally I had listed that Chuseok is a Korean harvest festival and Tsukimi as Japanese harvest festival under the "See Also" section, because it is worthy to note that there are other holidays that fall on the same day. Then another editor changed to saying they are Korean and Japanese versions of Mid-Autumn Festival. And now another editor removed such connections completely. Clearly there is some contention here. I'll start off by clarifying that "Mid-Autumn Festival" is an English exonym that commonly refers to 中秋节 (Zhōngqiū Jié) and Tết Trung Thu, since English is not the official language of China and Vietnam. What I see far less is this term being used to apply to 추석 (Chuseok), though I do see it used from time to time; Korean Thanksgiving seems more common though. I think applying it to Tsukimi is nearly nonexistent, in part because Tsukimi is not a very well-known observance. The point of contention with the two recent edits is whether there is or is not a relation among the aforementioned festivals. Clearly, if I see people sometimes using the term "Mid-Autumn Festival" to refer to Chuseok, omitting the relationship from this article is disservice to knowledge seekers. We must clarify if the term refers to the same festival (i.e. if 中秋节 and 추석 are synonyms that are merely in different languages, as in Christmas and Noel), or that it is ambiguously applied to related though different festivals (related in the sense that they all fall on the same day; different in the sense that they all seem to have independent origins), even if there has to be a disambiguation that says "Mid-Autumn Festival is a term sometimes used to refer to Chuseok, a Korean harvest festival that is celebrated on the same day". yellowtailshark (talk) 05:27, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Aside from using the same lunisolar calendar, these celebrations are culturally very different. A disambiguation page of Lunar New Year should suffice to imply any connections between new year celebrations in East Asia, which includes Mongolian New Year and Tibetan New Year as well. Cydevil38 (talk) 10:46, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Alright, just looked through the Talk:Mid-Autumn Festival/Archive 2012 and prior#Blanking of "East_Asian" and removal of Korean name, which already discussed this. yellowtailshark (talk) 05:52, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

As a Chinese, I think I should add some comments after all these discussions. Type "中秋节" in the zh.wipedia.org, and turn it to the Korea version, it comes out with "중추절(中秋節)은 추석(秋夕), 중추(仲秋), 십오야(十五夜) ". Although I don't know any Korean, I think this page actually refers these different Chinese characters as equal. Here, 節 is traditional Chinese character for "节", "仲" in ancient times can be equal to "中". All these discussions of origins of these festivals are based on one word on two in the historical records in all these east-asia countries. Even in the Chinese ancient books, there is no actual evidence that the "仲秋之月养衰老，行糜粥饮食。" refers to the thing that is equal to the modern 中秋节. However, based on believable history, China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea share the same calendar in a period of time. Within the tradition of the east-asia, the calendar is a remarkable symbol of power. JVK all used to become vassal states of China. The Chinese emperors send them calendars and books on Astronomy in order to adjust their dates and time to be similar as China. This is called "奉正朔". It means that every starting point of years and months should be the same as the central empire. After Sui dynasty, Japan usually would like to reveal their independence from China, so they began to use their own calendar thereafter. Vietnam and Korea all kept synchronous on calendar to China ever since. The last Chinese traditional lunar calendar is called 时宪历. It is actually used until now and is regarded as a common calendar even after the Korea got independent from China in 1895, and Vietnam modified their suzerain to France after 1885. So we can see that the lunar calendars used in CJKV are finally the same thing. Based on the similar culture and the actual fact that China did own suzerainties over these countries in history, referring to the fact that these festivals share the same day as a "coincidence" is a very odd expression. One of the reason that somebody might not be willing to identify them as equal might due to the reason of deliberate effort of "Non-Chineselization" . In the early modern time, China falls off and was rendered into poverty and weakness. These countries all started to "non-chineselize" earlier or later. If China did not fall, e.g., if China won the war of 甲午, some one might not deliberately distinct these festivals which is actually in the same day. Although we cannot get evidence that these festivals are just the same thing, there is also no actual evidence that they are finally different things at the same time. Based on the similar culture and common historical memories, it is not suitable to emphasis or indicate that they are different things.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.89.152.187 (talk) 17:17, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

You make an interesting point regarding the calendar, but unless I find such research in a reputable reference, we must be careful not to conduct original research (WP:NOR). And yes, while there's no evidence of a lack of connection, we can't state that they are the same thing either. However, I did find an obscure reference published by the Japanese Public Information Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1970, which attributes the origin of Tsukimi to being introduced from Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival to Japan during the Heian period. As for Chuseok, it does have an independent origin, from what I read. And most English-language articles I read refer to the holiday in Korea more commonly as Chuseok than Mid-Autumn Festival (it's rare to find someone referring to it as Mid-Autumn Festival). Even if Vietnam's Tet Trung Thu had an independent origin, the English translation of Tet Trung Thu is Mid-Autumn Festival. So regardless of their history, they are bound to be on this page. But no one says Chuseok translated means Mid-Autumn Festival in English. Even in Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese wikipedias, they seem to be separate articles. yellowtailshark (talk) 07:51, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

For the previous comments you mentioned on my previous-previous comments, as a Chinese, I can say something else. The vietnamese "Tet Trung Thu" is actually "節中秋" if written in Vietnamese style of Chinese. Compared with the Chinese grammer, they only put the adj. after the noun. The "Tet Trung Thu" is just the Vietnamese pronunciation of the Chinese characters, which conserves many features of the ancient Chinese. In Japan, "Tukimi" is written as "月見", a Chinese can immediately knows the meaning once seeing the word. It just means "To see the moon", although it should be read by the Kunyomi (训读) style thus no ancient Chinese pronunciation can be found compatible . In Korea, "Chuseok" is written as "秋夕" before World War II, a Chinese can also immediately knows the meaning, it just means "the autumn night". The pronunciation is also compatible with the classical Chinese "Chiu siek", although read in a Korean way. Whether it means "mid autumn" is not important, because the ancient Chinese is famous for its concision. If it is a festival in the autumn, and we usually celebrate during the night, and by watching the moon, it is by no doubt the mid-autumns festival celebrated at night in all CJKV. Just as in Chinese, we usually calls it "中秋节", without referring to the custom to celebrate at night, so no "夕" appear in this word, and in Japan, "月見" only prompt you that the custom includes seeing the moon, so no "夕" and "中" appeared, too. All these names only extract part of the characters of this festival, but you could not say others are not the features because they don't appear in the name. And as I pointed, some pages of the wikipedia also pointed out that there is a way in Korea, although some kind of old style, to write Chuseok as "仲秋", which also means "mid-autumn". In the Chinese version of wikipedia of "中秋节", at the side of the page, there is also "仲秋節" and "秋夕", together with the modern Korean phonetic notation in the diagram.

Although these festivals might have different origins coincidently or for something else, the culture interchanging in CJKV is very frequent and China is of course the center in the ancient times. Although I have no evidence, if an ancient vietnamese, or Korean, or Japanese travelled to China and "discovered" that the Chinese celebrate the festival in the same day with them, and also watch the moon at that time. The elders tell the fairytale about the rabbit on the moon, although producing medicine for Chang'e to come back to the mankind's world in China, however producing something others in Korea and Japan, would he believe that there should be a different thing? They will actually believe that they live in the same "天下", (under the heaven), they would not to doubt the identical of the celebration, just like they would not doubt that the Chinese Character should be the only common character used in the same civilized "天下", the Chinese-style long hair topknot, Chinese-style wide clothing should be the symbol of the civilized world (Chinese changed the hairstyle into pigtails and the clothing to the Manchu-style during the Manchu-Qing Dynasty). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tangyilei (talk • contribs) 13:46, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Alternate Names

This section needs a bit of cleanup. I think there has to be clarification between names that are found in English-language media, and names that are really translations of the original Chinese/Vietnamese. yellowtailshark (talk) 17:04, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Major Harvest Festivals in East Asia

Regardless of whether the Mid-Autumn Festival, Chuseok, and Tsukimi are culturally related, the fact that these festivals are celebrated on the same day is rather important for people to know, because the first two, at the minimum, are major holidays in their respective countries and was/is greatly relevant to work and travel schedules in East Asia as a whole. Lathdrinor (talk) 17:48, 5 September 2014 (UTC)