Happy Moon Festival!

Hi everyone

It’s Cindy.

It seems that we didn’t have a great summer this year again and as everyone can feel the temperature drop, autumn is on its way.

There is a very important traditional festival we celebrate since 3,000 years ago falling on the coming Sunday. That is Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as Moon Festival.

The Mid-Autumn Festival, 中秋节, Zhōng Qiū Jié, falls on the 15^th day of the eight months in Chinese calendar. It is believed that the origin of the celebration is related to moon worship. It is the ideal time, when the moon is full and bright and the weather is still warm, to celebrate the abundance of the summer’s harvest.

In Moon festival, we eat moon cakes which look like meat pie but contain no meat!

You can find moon cakes in Chinese shops in the UK now. It has got pastry outside and various fillings inside. The traditional fillings including duck yolks, nuts, dates dry fruits, ham etc. Nowadays, people don’t like traditional flavours as much because the ingredients are normally very rich. So moon cakes fillings have improved healthier and more with modern taste. You can easily find fillings in flavours such like pineapple, red bean and green paste, coffee, strawberry, chocolate and even ice-cream in shops. (Well, I mean shops over the other side of the world, not in the UK…)

Mid-Autumn Festival is a national holiday in China. And there is a romantic story behind this special festival. There are a few versions of the story. Here I share the version I was told since I was a little girl with you.

The story is about the archer Houyi and his beautiful wife Chang’e.

The earth once had ten suns taking turns to illuminate the earth. They worked very well and nothing turned out wrong. However, one day, ten suns decided to do their duties together. Ten suns appeared together, scorching the earth and boiling out all the water. People suffered from the heat and their crops died.

Houyi, a young, strong, and tyrannical archer decided to shoot down the suns to save people’s lives. He shot down the suns one by one until the last one remained on the sky. He became a hero and eventually he became King.

One day, he went out hunting. On his way back, he saw the goddess, Queen Mother of the West. He stole the elixir from the goddess and wanted to become immortal. After his wife, Chang’e, knew his plan, she stole the elixir from him and swallowed it to stop her husband’s evil plan. After swallowed the elixir, she was floating and flew to the moon. It is said that Chang’e lives in the cold and lonely palace on the moon with a rabbit. Houyi lost his elixir and died eventually. Before he died, he could only look at the shadow of the moon and think of his wife.

Nowadays, Mid-Autumn Festival becomes a family reunion occasion. Families comes back home from everywhere in the world, gather together and have meals and moon cakes. In Taiwan, it is very popular that having BBQ in Moon Festival. It is very nice to have families around, having BBQ, drinking cold beer, having moon cakes as dessert, and look at the full and bright moon in the sky.

Unfortunately, it’s been raining in the UK recently, but I am still hoping the weather will turn out better on weekend. So we can have a chance to enjoy the full moon. Even though you are in somewhere different from your families, all of you are still under the same full moon.

Wish all of you a very happy weekend and moon festival.

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Many thanks.

Cindy

Extending reading:

http://www.chinavoc.com/festivals/Midautumn.htm

http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/Festivals/78311.htm

http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_chinaway/node_414.htm

http://www.sinica.edu.tw/tit/festivals/0995_MidAutumn.html