Double Third Festival


The Double Third Festival or Shangsi Festival is an East Asian festival. The 2021 date is April 14.

China

The Double Third or Shangsi Festival is an ancient Chinese festival celebrated on the third day of the third month of the Chinese calendar. During the festival people would go for an outing by the water, picnic, and pluck orchids. It is also a day for invoking cleansing rituals to prevent disease and get rid of bad luck. The day is also traditionally considered to be a possible birthday of the Yellow Emperor.
The ancient traditions of Shangsi are mostly celebrated by a few local communities today, such as the ancient village of Xinye which holds elaborate ancestor worship ceremonies on this day.
The great calligrapher Wang Xizhi mentions this festival in his famous work Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Poems, written in regard to the Orchid Pavilion Gathering during the Six Dynasties era.
This holiday is also celebrated in Korea, where it is called Samjinnal or sangsa, in Japan as Hinamatsuri.

Korea

Samjinnal is one of sesi pungsok or Korean traditional customs by season, which falls on the third day of the third month in the Korean lunar calendar. It was called samjil in old Korean language and referred to as sangsa, wonsa, sungsam, sangje or dapcheongjeol in hanja. Samjinnal implies the overlapping of Sam. According to Choi Namseon, samjil was derived from the consonants of Samil, and Sangsa is defined as the first snake day of the 3rd lunar month.

Customs

Samjinnal is the festive day that informs the arrival of spring. This day is known as the day the swallows came back from Gangnam and the day the snake came out from its winter sleep. It is also the day birds and butterflies start to appear. This day, in the North Gyeongsang region, seeing a snake signifies good luck, seeing a white butterfly means death that year, and seeing a yellow butterfly implies fortune. They say soybean paste brewed this day tastes especially good and houses are repaired. By conducting farm frugality, people pray for abundance.
During Samjinnal, people pick out azalea flowers and knead it with glutinous rice dough to make Hwajeon, a Korean traditional rice cake. Mung bean powder is used to make mung bean noodles, and is also occasionally used with the azalea flowers. By dyeing the mung bean powder with red water, a seasonal dish called Sumyeon can be prepared. Other than this, white bubble rice cakes made with red bean paste called Santteok, Goritteok made from glutinous rice, pine endodermis and mugwort, and Ssuktteok made from glutinous rice and mugwort leaves are eaten this day.

Nori (Folk games)