Today marks the Double Ninth Festival, but since 1966 the date is more commonly known as Senior Citizen’s Day, when elderly members of the community celebrate the Old Men Festival. The Chinese name for the ancient lunar festival is the Chong Yang Festival; ‘Chong’ means double or repeat while ‘Yang’ is a nod to the number nine (9), the highest single digit Yang number. So on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month in the Chinese calendar it’s Senior’s day. Some folks also refer to the date as the Chrysanthemum Festival. This year the festival falls on 28 Oct 2025 in the Universal calendar.
Like all ancient festivals the origins are steeped in folklore and myth, with many Double festivals throughout the Chinese Lunar year. Astute Chinese metaphysical scholars will know how deeply symbolic and relevant role of Chinese star lore and in turn Feng Shui Flying Stars play especially in the Double Ninth festival. Taoists observe the full nine days of this festival, with symbolic ritual that honour each lunar day.
The festival typically symbolises deities journey to and from heaven – moral to immortal. The festival technically opened on the first day of the ninth lunar month (Oct 21, 2025) with welcome rituals by waterways. Over the course of the nine days various temple visits, fire ceremonies, self-purification acts such as eating pure foods, wearing white; a colour symbolic of purity, plus absence from various vices, stimulants and many practice celibacy.
The ‘Double Ninth Festival’ is oft colloquially called ‘Mountain climbing Festival’. As the name suggests people climb mountains! It’s a nod to the number nine, as it’s the highest number and to climb high is akin to climbing high in ones career or social standing (a high ranking in ancient times). Number nine is also symbolic of Fame, joyous celebrations, fire and spiritual ascension. Spiritually, climbing a mountain is often used as a metaphor for challenging journey and achieving enlightenment.
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Pic by Nina Linden
Folklore also denotes that planting of cornel twig slips on the Double Ninth Festival was believed to dispel evil like diseases and avert disaster. Red dogwood look alot like flames of fire even in autumn/winter when it’s shed its leaves. The shrub is an extremely strong hard wood (also called Boxwood) used in furnishings and in Christian circles it’s said the cross of Calvary was fashioned from the tree. Walking sticks were also whittled for the purpose of climbing hills on the Festival day.
Others believe that in the foothills of Lishan Mountains a fortune teller predicted a great flood. A family, who had shown kindness to a Seer, was forewarned of the flood and climbed the Mountain, loosing their home, but surviving the disaster. In paintings and scrolls the season of Autumn, is often depicted with scenes of great mountain ranges and water gorges.
The ninth month was known to the Ancients as Chrysanthemum month, so the flower features greatly in Festival celebrations. Favoured by poets, cooks and gardeners alike. Known as the flower of longevity its nectar is used in various longevity elixirs and the bloom is oft hung in doorways to dispel bad luck.
No festival would be complete without tucker. It’s seems if you had Chrysanthemums in your garden, you won’t grown thirsty or hungry! The blousy bloom formed the bases for the “chrysanthemum cake”, a traditional treat on this day. Over the centuries the sweet cake took on various forms and additions, the most elaborate and impressive being the “Chong Yang Gao’- a nine story pagoda cake, with a pair of sheep gracing the top pillar.
Cornus sericea aka Red-osier dogwood in Palisade, Minnesota by Lorie Shaull via Flickr CC2.0
Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎 (1760-1849, b. in Edo, Japan) Dragonfly and Chrysanthemums via RISD Museum CC01
If liquids are more your jam so to speak, then Chrysanthemum wine or tea was also on the menu. Some say on the 9th of the 9th the tradition was to harvest the flowers, while others are content with quaffing the liquid nectar - fashioned one year previously. Apparently drinking of said wine, cured drunkenness!!! Can’t say I’ve sampled, so I can’t vouch for the possibility. If alcohol isn’t your tipple then a tea is also fashioned on the day. The reason for drinking either infusion is rooted in the symbolism of the flower - known as the flower of longevity. And according to ancient records, drinking the wine made with chrysanthemums petals, poria cocos and pine oleoresin, is said to promise long lasting youth! Hence the Senior’s day observation to instill longevity.
The Double Ninth usually occurs in October, which usually coincides with Dog Month - and Dogwood is the colloquial name for the aforementioned Cornus sericea shrub. The berried autumn branches were popular adornments to women and children’s attire. As previously mentioned, the planting of the tree on this day to dispel evil, was also very popular and sometimes shrub was added to Chrysanthemum wine infusions.
Like all festivals in the Chinese calendar, family gatherings are encouraged. Especially catching up with Senior family members to celebrate their seniority. And veneration of Ancestor tombs, is also popular on this day. Noting the Dog in Chinese folklore is a Guardian, likened to Anubis in the Egyptian ‘Book of the Dead’. It’s no coincidence that compass wise the Dog positional home is NW, known as Heaven’s Gate, where the Summer Sun sets, and dips below the horizon in the Northern Hemisphere. Hence perhaps the significance of ancestral veneration at this time of year (Halloween)?
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