The Moon Festival“Once upon a time, there was a beautiful lady Chang Er. Chang Er and her husband, Hou Yi, lived a very happy life together…” In China this is always a story told to children by their grandparents or parents during the Mid-Autumn Festival. The Mid-Autumn Festival, also called the Moon Festival, is on the 15th day of the eighth Chinese lunar month. The Chinese have been an agricultural society for thousands of years. They use the moon as an important time reference and guide in agricultural activities. After the harvest is done, there is always a full moon day in August (of the lunar calendar). This is the best time to celebrate! The round shape to Chinese means family reunion. Therefore, the Moon Festival is also a holiday for members of a family to get together. Many families like to have a moon gazing activity in the evening. They set a table in the yard, and on the table there are many kinds of fruits like oranges, dates, pomegranates, persimmons and melons, and the most important food - the moon cakes. Usually the whole family likes to share one big moon cake first to show that they share their love with everyone in the family. While enjoying the beautiful full moon and its brightness, grandparents or parents tell the legend passed from their grandparents. They try to find the images of Chang Er, her pet the Jade Bunny and the Laurel Tree chopper Wu Gang in the shadows on the moon. Later, little kids fall asleep with a dream of seeing the beautiful Chang Er and her bunny in the moon... In some of the years, the Moon Festival falls very close to October 1st, which is the National Day of China. The weekends plus holidays allow many people to have enough days to travel home for a family reunion. But for all kinds of reasons there are always some families that can't get everybody back home on Mid-autumn Festival. Chinese believe that the moon is a medium through which people can send their thoughts and feelings to their dear ones. There are a lot of famous poems about the moon written by ancient poets to describe their feelings on the Moon Festival when they were away from home. We have e-mail and telephone now but Chinese still like to use the moon and ancient poems to express their feelings on the Mid-Autumn Festival. It is very romantic that family members in different places look at the moon at the same time and let their hearts talk to each other. Interestingly, it was said that the moon cake was the earliest fortune cookie in Chinese history. At the end of Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuan Zhang passed his secret messages in moon cakes to his supporters. On the Moon Festival they successfully attacked and overthrew the ruler of Yuan Dynasty. Zhu Yuan Zhang then established the Ming Dynasty (A.D.1368-1644). Moon cake is the most popular gift for the Moon Festival. It is a kind of baked goods with dough outside and stuffing inside. Its shape, of course, is round as a full moon. The stuffing in the moon cake may be bean paste, date paste, mixed nuts, preserved duck egg yolk, ham, preserved fruits and sugar. The moon cake has been improved year after year and wherever there is a Chinese bakery around the world, hundreds of varieties of moon cake are on sale a month before the arrival of the Moon Festival. There are many versions of the Moon Festival legend, but there are always three main figures in common. They are the fairy maiden Chang Er, her pet the Jade Rabbit and the laurel tree chopper Wu Gang. Chang Er was the wife of the famous archer, Hou Yi. It was said that there were ten suns in the ancient time, and they took turns to come out in the sky on each day. One day the ten suns were crazy and came out at the same time. The heat from the ten suns poured to the earth and caused a terrible drought. The crops were all dead. People and animals didn't have water and food. The Royal Mother of the West Haven was very angry with these suns, and ordered the famous archer Hou Yi to shoot them down. Hou Yi took his gigantic bow and started to shoot the suns. One, two, three, four … until there was only one left in the sky. The earth cooled down again and crops, people, and animals all survived. The Royal Mother of the West Heaven was very satisfied with Hou Yi's work, so gave him a pill that can make people live forever. Hou Yi brought the pill home and put it in a secret place. He wanted to share the pill some day with his beautiful wife Chang Er, so that they could live together forever. Unexpectedly Chang Er found the pill. She was as curious as she was beautiful, and swallowed the pill. Immediately after she swallowed the pill, she felt that her body became very light, and off the ground she started to fly! She flew higher and higher. Finally she reached the moon. She was very regretful because she could never go back to the earth. From then on she had to stay on the moon living a lonely life. When people try to find Chang Er in the bright moon, they always tell the children that there is a lovely jade bunny in Chang Er's arms. Many people believed that the bunny was turned into a jade bunny and sent to the moon to live forever as a reward for sacrificing itself to help sages. The Jade Bunny became the pet and good company for Chang Er. Another figure in the moon is a man who is busy chopping a laurel tree. He is Wu Gang. When he lived on the earth, he had a master who was an immortal. Wu Gang could never concentrate himself in learning and asked to change his project every other day. Finally his master got very mad at him. He sent Wu Gang to the moon to cut a laurel tree, which restored immediately after each chopping. Wu Gang has to continue chopping… No matter what is the reason - mistake, reward or punishment - that each of these figures was sent to the moon, people love them and respect them. They are simply considered as gods of the moon, and there are many written stories, poems, and dramas about them. Chang Er is sweet, beautiful and an excellent dancer. Wu Gang is a hard-working, handy man. The Jade Bunny, lovely and cute. Moon Festival is a very important occasion in the overseas Chinese community. In most Chinatowns there are all kinds of activities celebrating the event. In Boston people don't wait until the 15th day of the 8th month in the lunar calendar, but celebrate the Moon Festival in August. There is always the demonstration of many lion dance troops and other shows and of course, the moon cakes are on sale! | |