Mid-Autumn Festival

Lanterns at the church party.

A week and a half ago was the Chinese harvest festival. Since the Chinese calendar is lunar, this holiday always falls on a full moon. Several people shared with me different legends associated with this holiday. I don't think I got it all, but one was about a couple: a pretty lady and an intergalactic archer who had a neighbor with bad intentions. In the end the pretty lady drinks a special potion, becomes immortal, and then flies up to the moon. She's still there, and I could never find out what happened to her bow bending hubby. I'm not sure what that legend has to do with the festival, other than the fact that Chinese see a woman in the moon, and a rabbit –– still not sure how he got there.

Dorm Party in the gymnaz. Each lantern had a riddle under it. One was, "what animal starts walking with four legs, followed by two legs, and finally three?"

The festival has three main elements: family, lanterns, and moon cake. Family is celebrated with the full moon; just like the moon is complete, the family should be too on Mid-Autumn Festival –– maybe something like Thanksgiving. Besides family, everyone has lanterns. All different kinds of lanterns.

Toy Story and Angry Birds are traditional characters in Chinese mythology, older than the dragon. 

Another important part of Mid-Atumn Festival is moon cake. It's sort-of like fruit cake: it's a festive dish, it's cake-ish, and it's dense. There are some differences though: moon cake doesn't have any fruit, and people actually like it.  It comes in personal pan sizes, about the size of a horse shoe and a similar weight. The cake is made of a semi-sweet sesame seed paste with hardened goose-egg yokes inside. Oh, and another similarity to fruit cake, moon cakes are recycleable. If it doesn't get eaten on the first go around,  it can be stored in the pantry and gifted to someone next season.

I got to celebrate this holiday three times: a dorm party the week before, a church party on Saturday evening, and then downtown on the night of. There was a "Fire Dragon" dance in Victoria Park.

The Fire Dragon was a 100' weave filled with incense sticks. A string of people held it above their heads with poles and made it live. This is a picture of the head.