The Barbecue in Moon Festival: Discussing the Social Change of Moon Festival Activities

The Moon Festival is a Chinese traditional holiday that was brought to Taiwan by the immigrants. Local Taiwanese gazetteers refer to numerous Moon-Festival-related activities such as admiring the full moon, eating moon cake, drinking wine, and placing bets on the moon cake. During the period of the Japanese colonization of Taiwan, many Western concepts were imported into the country. Part of this was the Japanese government's drive to encourage the Taiwanese to engage in travel. While travelling, the Taiwanese started to admire the full moon in parks and on steam boats. This had a clear effect on Moon Festival activities. In fact, after 1945, boat trips just to view the full moon emerged into the local scene. Still later, under the effect of industrialization, villagers started to move into the city. This set the stage for more changes to the Moon Festival activities. For the migrants who craved the warm feeling of home, barbecuing turned out to be the easiest and most suitable social activity to bring people together. In only ten years, the Moon Festival barbecue made its mark on the Taiwanese way of life as we now know it.中秋節是中國傳統的節日，漢人入台後也將此一節俗傳入台灣。清代台灣的中秋節的節俗活動在台灣方志裡有許多記載，諸如賞月、吃月餅、飲酒、賭餅等都是過去常見的節俗活動。日治時期由於西方觀念的傳入，以及日人在台灣的建設，為了彰顯其殖民成果，日人也鼓勵台人某些參觀旅遊活動，此舉也進一步影響到秋節節俗活動，台人也開始有到公園賞月或乘汽船賞月的情況。戰後，旅遊賞月曾一度出現。後來在工業化的影響下，鄉村人口流入都市，此一社會變遷背景，成為秋節活動產生變化的舞台。當游離人口需要溫情慰藉，簡單易行又可聯誼與豐富情感交流的烤肉活動出現，很快地在短短十幾年間即傳開普及，成為台灣秋節活動的一大特色