Tsukimi

or , meaning, "''moon-viewing"'', are Japanese festivals honoring the autumn moon, a variant of the

Mid-Autumn Festival The Mid-Autumn Festival (Chinese language, Chinese: / ), also known as the Moon Festival or Mooncake Festival, is a traditional festival celebrated in Chinese culture. Similar holidays are celebrated in Japan (), Korea (), Vietnam (), and othe ...

. The celebration of the

full moon The full moon is the lunar phase when the Moon appears fully illuminated from Earth's perspective. This occurs when Earth is located between the Sun and the Moon (when the ecliptic longitudes of the Sun and Moon differ by 180°). This mean ...

typically takes place on the 15th day of the eighth month of the traditional

Japanese calendar Japanese calendar types have included a range of official and unofficial systems. At present, Japan uses the Gregorian calendar together with year designations stating the year of the reign of the current Emperor. The written form starts with t ...

, known as ; the

waxing moon Concerning the lunar month of ~29.53 days as viewed from Earth, the lunar phase or Moon phase is the shape of the Moon's directly sunlit portion, which can be expressed quantitatively using areas or angles, or described qualitatively using the t ...

is celebrated on the 13th day of the ninth month, known as . These days normally fall in September and October of the modern

solar calendar A solar calendar is a calendar whose dates indicate the season or almost equivalently the apparent position of the Sun relative to the stars. The Gregorian calendar, widely accepted as a standard in the world, is an example of a solar calendar ...

. The tradition dates to the

Heian era The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese. ...

, and is now so popular in Japan that some people repeat the activities for several evenings following the appearance of the full moon during the eighth lunisolar month. Tsukimi traditions include displaying decorations made from

Japanese pampas grass ''Miscanthus sinensis'', the eulalia or Chinese silver grass, is a species of flowering plant in the grass family Poaceae, native to eastern Asia throughout most of China, Japan, Taiwan and Korea. Description It is an herbaceous perennial g ...

(''susuki'') and eating rice dumplings called ''Tsukimi

dango is a Japanese dumpling made from rice flour mixed with uruchi rice flour and glutinous rice flour. It is different from th