Mid-Autumn Festival
Mid-Autumn Festival is one of three major holidays in the Chinese culture. The other two been Chinese New Year and Duanwu Festival (Dragon Boat Festival).
Mid-Autumn Festival is on 15th of the 8th month in the Lunar calendar. This means that the moon is always round and full on this holiday. Therefore, many of the traditional festival celebrations are in the evening and outdoors to enjoy the bright harvest moon.
Although I haven’t been seriously celebrating this holiday since coming to America years ago. This use to be one of my favorite holidays as a child. Like everyone else, my parents would set up a charcoal barbecue in the early evening when the moon is just showing up. After an out door dinner where we snack and play through out, Dad would take us out for a walk with lanterns on a stick in our hands. The paper lanterns with a small red cake candle inside usually catches on fire and completely burned down half way through the walk. The poor lanterns just didn’t stand a chance with my brother and I shaking them and trying to out walk each other. Maybe because my brother’s caught on fire first, I don’t remember been devastated even after the first lantern burned down. Later, in 3rd or 4th grade, we made lanterns out of tin cans by punching one with lots of nail holes and hang them with wires on a stick. These ones don’t burn down anymore and the candle light reflections from the metal just makes the lanterns more mesmerizing to stare at in our after dinner walks. These days, most lanterns are mass produced and battery operated with fancy designs and colors. Very pretty to look at still, but they were just not as much fun to walk with since you don’t have to worry about the little fire bouncing around inside anymore.
Moon cake and fireworks are the next highlight of the evening. The small cake filled with red bean past and a yellow yoke inside is the most traditional and still the best with a cup of green or oolong tea. Since a moon cake is usually rich and sweet, it’s cut up in smaller pieces to savor with cups of tea while enjoying the fireworks and the full moon.
