Moon Cake Festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival ( 中秋節), also known as the Moon Festival or Mooncake Festival is well celebrated by Chinese people from all over the world.


This festival first appeared as a ritual some 3,000 years ago and only became well known during the Tang Dynasty. The festival is held on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the Chinese lunar calendar. It's when the moon is at its roundest and brightest for the entire year, the Chinese celebrate "zhong qiu jie."

How does the Chinese people will normally celebrated this festival?

It’s customary for friends and family to have a gathering in the evening to appreciate the beauty of bright full moon. While having one tradition of getting together, it will not be complete without the mooncakes which goes well with drinking warm tea to wash down the sweetness of mooncake filling.

To get everyone in the mood for this day, it would be appropriate songs related to the moon will be played. One song that is stuck on my head is the evergreen song "The Moon Represents My Heart" by the late singer Teresa Teng.

This festival might be a good excuse for having a party at your house.

Another customary way to celebrate and decorate this day, is to light up the night with lanterns and candles. In my childhood days the lanterns usually in the shape of animals like dragons or horses but now more in the cartoon character like Angry Birds.

 My favourite childhood lantern was a dragon

Playing with candles are one time kids enjoy when mom allowed
 during the festival, nowadays it
even come with noisy music battery operated cartoon lanterns but
 Nothing Beats An Original when having fun with lanterns!

In Taiwan, floating sky lanterns will be release in the sky but we are concern this might be hazard to aircraft therefore are banned here. So far any planes at Taiwan being affected by the lanterns? Don't know for sure? How high can the sky lantern being flown? It can only flies for 5-10 min with approximately 200 - 500m.

Wow- pretty scenery to look but
Need to be environmental friendly which contain no metal parts and are 100%
biodegradable - Light up the sky without littering the ground and also when release into the sky
 for safety purpose
need to choose open space not near major roads nor nearby airports.

In the past before commercialization began, mooncake festival is known as Mid-Autumn festival from the ancient ceremony of Sacrificing to the Moon Goddess for the year's end harvest to give thanks for the good harvest season.

People offer sacrifices and pay homage to the moon.Offering from the harvest such as apples,grapes,melons and pomelos were common. Not to miss out on this festival is "tang yuen" which is sweet glutinous rice dumplings. 

It's significant due to the meaning of word 'yuen'. It meant round  'yuan man' (complete), cycles of seasons, for good luck and symbolize unity and harmony within the family.
Traditionally, mooncakes are filled with lien-yung(brownish lotus bean paste) and at the centre a yoke of a preserved duck's egg stuff in the middle. It will be cut into quarters and shared among friends and relatives. Other varieties there are tousha(black bean paste), tou-yung(yellow bean paste) and golden trotter(lotus seeds mixed with sweeten paste).

In this modern era for marketing purposes the mooncake pastry will be diversified into different flavour to suit the taste of customers.

Today, mooncakes may be filled with everything and  include green tea mooncakes, and ping pei or snowskin mooncakes.

The price of mooncake can be quite expensive. Unless you're planning to buy a gift for friend or relatives, I would rather wait till festival around the corner cause that's when you got the best discount price.

Mooncake price reduction as the festival night approaching

Mooncakes now comes in fruits, tea and others flavours

Mooncake Legends

1. Chang'e the Moon Goddess

Children in the past like me are quite gullible and naive as we believe what the elders inform us. Just like the western countries children believe there's a Santa Claus, Chinese children are told the story of the moon fairy living in a crystal palace, who comes out to dance on the moon's shadowed surface.

There are many story variants and different adaptations of the legend of Chang'e but basically goes like this

Once upon a time when ten suns appeared at the same time in the sky. The Emperor ordered a famous archer by the name of Houyi to shoot down the nine extra suns. After the mission was accomplished, Queen mother of Western Paradise-Hsi Wang Mu rewarded the archer with an elixir pill that would make him immortal. However, his wife - Chang'e stole and ate the pill. To evade being pursuit by the husband, she stays and fled to the moon till to this day.

Now, with modern age of science and technology and already being to the moon, I must say children will likely tell me to grow up if I tell the same story to them. There is a better chances of them believing there are ET in the moon then Chang'e.

2. The Hare - Jade Rabbit

This legend tell the story about Buddha transformed himself into a pitiful old man and approach three creatures for food- the toad, a baboon and a hare.
Both toad and fox could provide fruits and a carp for the old man. Since the hare could not provide any food to offer, the hare jumped into the fire to provide it's own flesh for the starving old man. In recognition of the hare ultimate sacrifice, Buddha was touched and let it live in the moon so where he became the "Jade Rabbit".




 3. Ming revolution

According to the legends,in the Yuan dynasty China under Mongol rule. 

The Chinese are living in hardship at that time became unhappy resenting the alien domination.

Group gathering were outlaw by the Mongols to prevent any chances of uprising. 

 Liu Bowen (劉伯溫), 

who circulated a false rumor that a deadly plague was spreading, and

                           to avoid the plague, the only way is to eat the mooncakes.   

                           Knowing the Mongolian will not eat any of the Chinese food,                                                         

                                     he plotted a plan to overthrow the Mongols.

 This allowed the quick distribution of mooncakes, which were used to hide a secret message coordinating the Han Chinese revolt on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month. It remind me of the Mission Impossible says 'this message will self destruct in 5 seconds' but the way done here was pieces of mooncake are then eaten to destroy the message.

On the night of the Moon Festival, the rebels successfully attacked and overthrew the government  facilitated by inserted secret messages in to the moon cakes.

Henceforth, the Mid-Autumn Festival was celebrated with mooncakes on a national level by most Chinese people.

4. Matchmaking and marriage month

The Chinese lunar 8th month is the most auspicious months for marriages. You will most likely find  the restaurants are fully booked for wedding dinners.

Yue Lao (月老),“the old man of the moonlight”, shares his birthday with Mid-Autumn Festival. This moon deity, an old greybeard is known as a matchmaker and his duty to ties couples with a magical invisible red thread which bind them. However, this cupid does not provide a warrant the possibility of happy-ever-after ending and is not responsible for any divorce. Marriage takes a lot of work to make it work, just don't blame Yue Lao if your marriage fails!

Matchmaking has been part of the Mid-Autumn Festival in the past.

In some parts of China, dances are held for young men and women to give an opportunity to find partners. Another is "One by one, young women are encouraged to throw their handkerchiefs to the crowd. The young man who catches and returns the handkerchief has a chance of romance." I'm sure those who stand in front has a better chances cause how far can the women throw?

It will work better the Western way, when a woman had her eye on the right target , she will dropped her handkerchief and expected the man might pick it up.

This method of using handkerchief is outdated.

Now you'll find method using online dating such as Face Book much more appealing and realistic but not all the the time Facebook user will reveal her or his true identity. Some people will try to dupe Facebook users using fake photo.

In the old fashioned way. If you're interested in someone, go directly and asked for her phone number or you could give her your number and says "Call me maybe?".  Nowadays that's another way which is people will use smartphone to scan bar codes linking users to their website on bracelet or t-shirts to find out about someone. I'm not sure this will be a good way to advertise your personal information.

Yue Lao the Chinese Cupid tied a invisible red string around the ankle of two soul mates, unlike
Cupid uses his arrow to strike the two people causing them to fall in love

5. Fire Dragon Dances.

There is a traditional and spectacular dance -the Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance which has roots going back to the 19th Century.


For the three nights, visitor come to see a 67-metre-long 'fire dragon' that winds its way with much fanfare and smoke through a collection of streets located in Tai Hang, close to Victoria Park in Causeway Bay.

This started in 1880 when Tai Hang was a small Hakka village of farmers and fishermen on the waterfront of Causeway Bay.

According to local folklore, over a century ago, a few days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, the village was hit by a typhoon followed by a plague. As if that's not bad enough, a python turn up and ate their livestock. Some of the villager when in a fit of rage killed it.

One of old man villager believe the giant python was actually the son of the Sea Dragon King. He claim the King will seek vengeance for the death of his child.

He has an idea. Knowing the Sea Dragon King will be afraid of fire, the villagers made a huge dragon of straw and covered it with incense sticks, which they then lit.

This dance around the village will be supported by loud beating drummers and bursting firecrackers for three days and night until the plague is vanished.

Therefore, the Fire Dragon Dance tradition continue to hold today with the exception of the Japanese Occupation and during the 1967 disturbances.

Spectacular Fire Dragon Set The City Alight

The two 'pearl' forwarded by two men who twirl and
spin to make it like a shining pearl.
 It is actually pomelos inserted with sticks of incense.

中秋节（zhong qiu jie) night of rejoice, reunion, happiness and romance...umm