What is Moon Festival?
The Chinese Moon Festival is on the 15th of the 8th lunar month. It's also known as the Mid-autumn Festival. Chinese culture is deeply imbedded in traditional festivals. Just like Christmas and Thanksgiving in the West, the Moon Festival is one of the most important traditional events for the Chinese.
The Moon Festival is full of legendary stories. Legend says that Chang Er flew to the moon, where she has lived ever since. You might see her dancing on the moon during the Moon Festival. The Moon Festival is also an occasion for family reunions. When the full moon rises, families get together to watch the full moon, eat moon cakes, and sing moon poems. With the full moon, the legend, the family and the poems, you can't help thinking that this is really a perfect world. That is why the Chinese are so fond of the Moon Festival.
The Moon Festival is also a romantic one. A perfect night for the festival is if it is a quiet night without a silk of cloud and with a little mild breeze from the sea. Lovers spend such a romantic night together tasting the delicious moon cake with some wine while watching the full moon. Even for a couple who can't be together, they can still enjoy the night by watching the moon at the same time so it seems that they are together at that hour.
Moon Cakes are a delicacy consumed during the Moon Festival. They have a noodle-like dough on the outside, and the insides are usually filled with one or more of the following: sweetmeats, bean paste, lotus seed paste, melon seed, all sorts of nuts, and duck egg yolks. The reason why they are called Moon Cakes may be because they are shaped like the moon. The Chinese characters mean that it was originally a seasonal confectionery eaten while admiring the mid-autumn harvest moon. Moon cakes go best with oolong or jasmine tea.
