Mid-Autumn Festival

Mid-Autumn Festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival occurs every year on the fifteenth day of the eighth

month. This date is in respect to the lunar calendar which is used by the Chinese.

In the Gregorian calendar, used in America, this day would be approximately the

fifteenth of September.

On this day, the moon is supposed to be at its fullest and brightest of the year.

The whole family eats out or in their yards to celebrate and watch the full moon.

Children play with paper lanterns and the same lanterns are hung outside the front

doors of buildings, such as houses and restaurants. Mooncakes are eaten and

Chinese tea is usually used to wash it down.

The name, mooncake, is self-explanatory. It is a round cake, in the shape of a

moon. The ingredients of the cake consist of lotus seeds, made into a sort of paste.

The paste is surrounded by a crust, which usually has four Chinese characters

imprinted on the top. These characters either tell the type of mooncake it is (i.e.

regular, lotus with egg yolk), the name of the store it was bought from, or just

simply says “mooncake”.

The origin of the mooncake is in China, during the Sang Dynasty. The Han

people were conquered by the Mongolians and named the new dynasty Yuan. The

Han people did not like living under Mongolian rule. Therefore, they wanted to

rebel and retake China. However, the Mongolians had taken this into consideration

and did not allow the people to communicate (especially public...

Mid-Autumn Festival

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