moon cake

Today is one of the major Chinese holidays, Mid-Autumn Festival, an ancient lunar harvest celebration. The Chinese have many myths about the moon and they all converge with this festival.  The big, full moon reminds Chinese of their family, so it’s also called the moon festival, and for the past week I’ve seen moon cakes everywhere: in bakeries, advertisements, grocery stores, and shopping bags.  Tonight, families will look at the moon and eat moon cakes.

Moon cakes, small, filled pastries, represent the moon and are packaged individually or into gift boxes.  I was given 2 large gift boxes of them, one from my counterpart teacher, one form the department.  I asked my counterpart teacher if people really like to eat them, explaining the fruitcake’s place in our history.  His evasive answer involved children who like sweet things.  Hell, I like sweet things; one of my hardships with living in China is the lack of sugar.  Bring on the moon cakes!  I’m eating one now for breakfast.  The box descriptions really appeal to me:  “super for people who has exquisite taste and enjoy the finest things in life,” “super quality exquisite taste and intense pleasure.”  Who can resist?

these will be in the freezer for all visitors to try

Mid-Autum festival coincides with National Day, so this is a national 1 week vacation.  Everyone goes home.  PCVs are not supposed to travel during their first 3 months at site “to better integrate into our communities.”  Never mind that our university campuses are nearly deserted.  What we’ll be integrating with is Netflix, for those lucking enough to have working Internet.

Today, I’m stuffing myself with moon cakes and planning day trips.