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The Mid-Autumn Festival in China
This year, there is something special about the Mid-Autumn Festival in China, because it falls on October 3, overlapped with the country’s National Day holiday, and people in China could have eight days for holiday. That is so exciting and people can get together for enjoying the long holiday.
The joyous Mid-Autumn Festival, the third and last festival for the living, is celebrated to the fifteenth day of the autumn equinox. Many referred to it simply as the “Fifteenth of the Eighth Moon”. In the western calendar, the day of the festival usually occurs sometime between the second week of September and the second week of October. This day is also considered a harvest festival since fruits, vegetables and grain has been harvested by this time and food is abundant. With delinquent accounts settle prior to the festival, it is a time for relaxation and celebration. Food offerings are placed on an altar set up in the courtyard. Apples, pears, peaches, grapes, pomegranates, melons, oranges and pomelos might be seen. Special foods for the festival included moon cakes, cooked taro, edible snails from the taro patches or rice paddies cooked with sweet basil and water caltrope, a type of water chestnut resembling black buffalo horns. Some people insist that cooked taro be included because at the time of creation, taro is the first food discovered at night in the moonlight. Of all these foods, it could not be omitted from the Mid-Autumn Festival.The round moon cakes, measuring about three inches in
diameter and one and a half inches in thickness, resemble western fruitcakes in taste and consistency. These cakes are made with melon seeds, lotus seeds, almonds, minced meats, bean paste, orange peels and lard. A golden yolk from a salted duck egg is placed at the center of each cake, and the golden brown crust is decorated with symbols of the festival.In China, there are several famous Chinese poems about the Mid-Autumn festival. The mostly widespread is the poem written by Li Bai: Thoughts in the Silent Night
Besides my bed a pool of light—
Is it hoarfrost on the ground?
I lift my eyes and see the moon,
I bend my head and think of home.
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