Moon festival

Last week, on 25 September, was Moon Festival, or Mid-Autumn Festival, one of the most important Chinese festivals. On this day, the 15th day of the 8th month (according to the lunar calendar), the full moon is at its brightest. And as the Chinese are very much fond of the moon, they celebrate this day with a special festival. The origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival seems, as many other Chinese festivals, not completely clear. Quite plausible to me is the explanation that the Chinese originally celebrated the harvest on that day. And what better day to celebrate it than during a full moon night?

Of course, on the evening of the Moon Festival, a special dish is eaten. This one is a particularly interesting one for me, because as far as I have been able to investigate, almost no Chinese likes the Moon Festival speciality: the moon cake. The funny thing is that before the festival, beautiful gift packages of moon cakes are spread by almost everyone, where in fact nobody actually eats them. And they are not cheap! I got a few boxes that probably costed at least 200 RMB per box (20 Euro). The Sheraton in Beijing had a big problem this year, as it was found after an official inspection that the moon cakes they had been selling, did not meet the required quality regulations, as defined by China's food authorities. I don't want to know what happened to the person responisble for the moon cake project this year in the Sheraton.

Another tradition is that on many places, quizzes are organised. Many question cards are hung on a line for everyone to see. On these cards, questions are written down. The one who comes up with and presents the right answer the quickest to a jury, wins a small prize. The questions often require quite a bit of knowledge about Chinese culture and language. They reminded me a lot of the questions you have in Trivial Persuit. Also in our cantina, a quizz was organised. Sadly though, I was not qualified enough to even try to answer one of the questions. Better luck next year???