Procursus:

The following brief passage is reproduced from

BREDON, Juliet & Igor MITGROPHANOW
1927 The Moon Year: A Record of Chinese Customs and Festivals. Shanghai: Kelly &Walsh. P.p. 143-144.

The Moon Year seems to have targeted the growing foreign community in Shanghai, but it rapidly became the whole English speaking world’s favorite overview of traditional Chinese folklore and customs.

At that time, the dynastic system was already extinct, but still part of everyone's memory, and there was a sense of unlimited possibilities as the new Chinese republic was getting its sea legs. Culturally there was a new enthusiasm for Chinese custom not just as the domain of the old, rural, or ignorant, but as colorful cultural treasures to be reformed and incorporated into the New China. Internationally, the Great Depression had not yet occurred, and the second world war was not yet on the horizon, and republican China was being enthusiastically received into the “family of nations” making up the new world order after World War I.

The Moon Year describes festivals and traditions associated through the lunar year, and even a grusome tale like this one is celebrated as delightful.

—DKJ

The … 19th of the first moon is known as … the “Rats’ Wedding Day,” when people are supposed to go to bed early, lest they disturb the rodents and the latter revenge themselves by being a pest in the house for the rest of the year. As a matter of fact, most people, tired out by the holidays, are quite ready to retire and leave the rats to their own devices.

A curious legend is attached to this day. The popular Peking [Běijīng 北京] version runs as follows:

Five hundred years ago a sleek rat lived in a cave, somewhere in the northern hills. Partly for love of solitude, partly to escape the summer heat, this wise little animal made its home in the rocks, where it somehow became changed into a woman.

Now solitude may be suitable for rats, but it is unendurable to women. So one day, when some charcoal-burners built a hut on the hillside near her cave, the rat lady went and knocked at their door. The man left at home to prepare a dumpling dinner for his companions was amazed to see a female in this lonely place.

But when she offered to cook for him, man-like he allowed her to prepare supper while he smoked a peaceful pipe. Sitting by, he noticed a claw mark on the dough cakes. Then he looked closely at her hands, and discovered to his horror that her fingers had rat’s claws.

So he seized a meat-chopper and lopped off one of the woman’s hands, whereupon she instantly disappeared. Later, he and his companions, following the blood trail to the cave, found neither rat nor woman.

And they went home and told their wives about it. Fearing revenge, the latter prepared food-offerings for the rats at once, and every year on this particular day their daughters, their granddaughters, and their great-grand-daughters, did likewise on the anniversary in remembrance of the strange lady.

Thus they hope to encourage the mild and benevolent members of the species to protect them against the more destructive rats, and persuade the latter to forage on the neighbours’ premises.

The Rats’ Wedding Day