Free Religion 101 by Peter Archer Page A

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    White, the traditional color of mourning in China.
    Taoist Festivals
    Taoists and Buddhists share four major Chinese festivals. In addition, the Taoists have many others throughout the year including the Taoist vegetarian and fasting days.
    Chinese New Year
    Chinese New Year is the major festival, which is also known as the “Spring Festival.” It is a time of great excitement and joy. It is also a time of wonderful and copious food and of gifts and roving bands of musicians that parade through the streets. Families reunite and give lavish gifts to children. Traditionally it is the time when new paper statues of the kitchen god are put up in houses. The door gods, who defend the house against evil spirits, are also replaced with new ones and good luck sayings are hung over the doorways.
    The high point of the season is New Year’s Eve, when every member of every family returns home. A sumptuous dinner is served, and children receive gifts of red envelopes that contain gifts of lucky money. Firecrackers and whistling rockets seem to be everywhere.
    In preparation for the events, every house is thoroughly cleaned so that the New Year will start off fresh and clean. Hair must be cleaned and set prior to the holiday, otherwise a financial setback would be invited. Debts should also be settled so that the coming year can start off with a clean slate.
    Following various religious ceremonies, the eleventh day is a time for inviting in-laws to dine. The Lantern Festival, on the fifteenth day after New Year, marks the end of the New Year season.
    The Dragon Boat Festival
    The Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated with boats in the shape of dragons. Competing teams row their boats forward to a drumbeat in an effort to win the race. Celebrated in June, the festival has two stories about the history of its meaning. The first one is about the watery suicide of an honest young official who tried to shock the emperor into being kinder to the poor. The race commemorates the people’s attempt to rescue the boy in the lake from the dragons who rose to eat him. It is looked at as a celebration of honest government and physical strength.
    The other story says the boats race to commemorate the drowning of a poet on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in 277 B.C. Citizens throw bamboo leaves filled with cooked rice into the water so the fish can eat it rather than the hero poet.
    Hungry Ghosts Festival
    The third great festival is the Hungry Ghosts Festival. Taoists and Buddhists believe that the souls of the dead imprisoned in hell are freed during the seventh month, when the gates of hell are opened. The released souls are permitted to enjoy feasts that had been prepared for them so that they would be pacified and would do no harm. Offerings and devotions, too, are made to please these ghosts and even musical events are staged to entertain them.
    Mid-Autumn Festival
    The Mid-Autumn Festival is also called the Moon Festival because of the bright harvest moon, which appears on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month. The round shape of the moon means family reunion, so, naturally, the holiday is particularly important for members of a family.
    One myth says that on the moon were the fairy Chang E, a woodcutter named Wu Gang, and a jade rabbit that was Chang E’s pet. In the old days people paid respect to the fairy Chang E and her pet. The custom has gone now, but moon cakes are sold during the month before the arrival of the Moon Festival.
    Another story concerns the goddess Sheng O, whose husband discovered the pill of immortality and was about to eat it and become a cruel ruler for eternity. Sheng O swallowed the pill instead, but the Gods saved her and transported her to the moon. She lives there to this day.

THE TEACHINGS OF CONFUCIUS
    The Search for Order
    Confucius lived in a time of political violence, so the stage was set for a teacher to emerge who had the ability to dispense a spiritual philosophy that would generate