…
everybody get your moon cakes!
The Mid-Autumn Festival
is almost here. It’s one of the most important holidays in China. The festival
is held on the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar… the night of
the full moon… between early September and October. This year it falls on
October 4th. The Festival is
a day for friends and family to gather together, offer thanks to the fall
harvest, and pray for longevity and good fortune. It’s sort of like our
Thanksgiving… but with moon cakes instead of pumpkin pie!
There are many mythical
tales of it’s origins… which dates more 3000 years ago. But the most common
told, and my personal favorite, is this one:
It is said that in ancient times, ten suns
existed and the extreme heat made people's lives very difficult. It was the
hero Hou Yi, who, owing to his great strength, shot down nine of the ten suns.
On hearing of this amazing feat and the hero who performed it, people came from
far and wide to learn from him. Peng Meng was among these people. Later, Hou Yi
married a beautiful and kind-hearted woman named Chang E and lived a happy
life.
One day, Hou Yi came upon Wangmu (the queen of
heaven) on the way to meet his old friend. Wangmu presented him an elixir
which, if took, would cause him to ascend immediately to heaven and become a
god/goddess. Instead of drinking the potion himself, Hou Yi took it home and
presented it to Chang E to keep. Unfortunately, Peng Meng secretly saw Hou Yi
give the potion to his wife and three days later, while Hou Yi was out hunting,
Peng Meng rushed into the backyard and demanded that Chang E hand over the
elixir. Knowing that she could not win, she took out the elixir and swallowed
it immediately. The moment she drank it, she flew out of the window and up into
the sky. Chang E's great love for her husband drew her towards the Moon, which
is the nearest place to the earth on the heaven.
On realizing what happened to his wife, Hou Yi
was so grieved that he shouted Chang E’s name to the sky. He was amazed to see
a figure which looked just like his wife appeared in the Moon. He took the food
liked by Chang E to an altar and offered it as a sacrifice for her. After
hearing that Chang E became a goddess, folk people also offered sacrifices to
Chang E to pray for peace and good luck. Since then, the custom of sacrificing
to the moon has been spread among the folklore.
Coinciding with the Festival is China’s Golden
Week. Unlike most of us, in other parts of the world, the Chinese people do not
generally get to choose their vacation days. Instead… China has two separate
week-long holidays called Golden Week. Factories and most business close down for the entire week. This is when most Chinese people migrate back to their hometowns to spend time with their family.
The first Golden Week is in late January, or
early February, and is commonly known as Chinese New Year. The second is called
National Day and falls in late September or early October… the Autumn-Festival usually
falls around, if not within, this same week.
So there’s pretty big stuff happenin in The Jing
this week. Big, beautiful red lanterns are going up everywhere and Mike seems
to come home with a new box of Moon Cakes every night. They look so pretty and
I want to like them so badly but… I’ve yet to take a bite of one and not have
to spit it into a napkin! So in the spirit of re-gifting… I will be passing
these beauties on to our Ayi. She will be thrilled with them… and me… and have
a lovely gift to bring home to her family next week!
As for me and Mikey… we’re heading to Thailand
for Golden Week where we too will gaze at the full moon with our friends Tina and
Matt. We will give thanks for a bountiful harvest and pray for longevity and good fortune.
But instead of eating moon cakes… we’ll be
swilling booze.
