Thursday was Mooncake Day. Technically, it is called 中秋節 or the Mid-Autumn Festival, but I call it Mooncake Day, for obvious reasons. Traditionally, it was a day when people got together to harvest crops and have a party under the full moon. Today, in the simplest terms, it is the Chinese version of Thanksgiving. Or rather, Thanksgiving is the American version of Mooncake Day since the Chinese were doing this two thousand years before the United States existed.
Though a completely different holiday from 元宵節, the Lantern Festival, people in some parts of China light and release paper lanterns into the sky. One of the best things about Mooncake Day in Hong Kong was watching all the lanterns float away. They don't do that in Taiwan. But they have mooncakes.
Mooncake baking is a billion dollar industry. Most of the companies that make mooncakes bake other things the rest of the year, but there are some businesses that do nothing but make mooncakes. They sell enough mooncakes during a single festival to keep the lights on all year. What makes it more remarkable is that everyone's grandmother makes mooncakes at home. Eating a mooncake during 中秋節 is like illiteracy in Mississippi. It is inevitable. Mooncakes are wildly popular, and sell like mooncakes, but for some reason, no one bothers to sell them the rest of the year. There is no law that says you cannot eat mooncakes at other times, but just like cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving, people only eat them on Mooncake Day. Maybe that is why they are so popular.
I was in Hong Kong just before Mooncake Day, but I had to come back to work, so I got to experience my second holiday in Taiwan. The first was Dragon Boat Day, which is more of a party and food holiday, while Mooncake Day is a family and food holiday. My only family in Taiwan are my roommates, who care about Mooncake Day as little as I do, and one of them is currently in Hong Kong. As such, the two of us who were here did nothing, except eat mooncakes. Which, overall, is what really matters.
