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moon_cake.jpg中秋节 Zhong Qiu Jie

Moon Festival or Mid-Autumn Festival

It is now the eighth month in the lunar calendar, the time for the Chinese to celebrate the Mid-Autumn festival. It is so called because it is in the middle of the eighth month, which is a full moon. We used to celebrate the full moon by fruit, moon cake, and children played their lanterns with neighbor.

On the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar the moon is full and it is time for the Chinese people to mark their Moon Festival, or the Mid-Autumn Festival. The round shape symbolizes family reunion. Therefore the day is a holiday for family members to get together and enjoy the full moon - an auspicious token of abundance, harmony and luck.

Sons and daughters will come back to their parents’ house. Sometimes people who have already settled overseas will return to visit their parents on that day. Adults will usually indulge in fragrant moon cakes of many varieties with a good cup of piping hot Chinese tea, while the little ones run around with their brightly-lit lanterns. After nightfall, entire families go out under the stars for a walk or picnics, looking up at the full silver moon, thinking of their nearby relatives or friends, as well as those who are far from home. A line from a verse “The moon at the home village is exceptionally brighter” expresses those feelings. It is also a romantic night for the lovers, who sit holding hands on riverbanks and park benches, enraptured by the brightest moon of the year.

midautumn_festival_poem.jpgRound “moon cakes”, made of fruit, ice cream, yogurt, pork, mushrooms, green tea, flowers, jelly etc., are a traditional food eaten during the festival. People also enjoy pomelos on this day; yu, the Chinese word for pomelo, sounds the same as another Chinese word to beseech the moon god for protection.

Best poem about Moon Festival
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水调歌头The Moon Festival

苏轼Su shi
明月几时有，把酒问青天。
不知天上宫阙，今夕是何年？
我欲乘风归去，又恐琼楼玉宇，
高处不胜寒。
起舞弄清影，何似在人间！
转朱阁，低绮户，照无眠。
不应有恨，何事长向别时圆？
人有悲欢离合，月有阴晴圆缺，
此事古难全。
但愿人长久，千里共婵娟 。

Bright moon, when was your birth?
Winecup in hand, I ask the deep blue sky;
Not knowing what year it is tonight
In those celestial palaces on high. I long to fly back one the wind,
Yet dread those crystal towers, those courts of jade,
Freezing to death among those icy heights!
Instead I rise to dance with my pale shadow;
Better off, after all, in the world of men.
Rounding the red pavilion,
Stooping to look through gauze windows,
She shines on the sleepless.
The moon should know no sadness;
Why, then, is she always full when dear ones are parted?
For men the grief of parting, joy of reunion,
Just as the moon wanes and waxes, is bright or dim:
Always some flaw-and so it has been since of old.
My one wish for you, is long life
And a share in this loveliness far, far away!

*This is a famous Mid-Autumn lyric written for his brother Zi-you(1039-1112) when the poet was away from the imperial court. According to some commentators, “the palace on high” might allude to the imperial palace and therefore, after reading this lyric, Emperor Song Shen Zong said that Su Shi was loyal.

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