Monday, September 28, 2015

Mooncake Day

Yesterday was 中秋節, the Mid-Autumn Festival. More commonly referred to as Mooncake Day by me. It is a festival with ancient roots in farming and agriculture. Despite the fact that most people in Mainland China, and almost no one in Hong Kong, is a farmer, it is still a popular holiday.

Since it was on a Sunday this year, Monday was a public holiday. It is an important enough festival for the post office to close.

The main activities on Mooncake Day seem to be eating, partying and lighting red lanterns. I don't pretend to understand the cultural significance of all these red lantern holidays, but they are nice to look at as they float away into the clouds.

My favorite part of Mooncake Day is that everyone and their mother gives everybody else mooncakes. Mooncakes, when made properly, are one of China's great contributions to world cuisine. Unfortunately, they are only available during the festival. Why can't they make them all year? I don't know. Why can't people eat Thanksgiving dinner at other times of the year? Pumpkin pie, cranberries and lefse are just as good in May. We humans like to follow our arbitrary rules.

1 comment:

  1. I really like the story behind the mooncakes that they were actually used for distributing notes with rebellion messages.

    ReplyDelete

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