Mid Autumn Festival Celebrations in Nanjing

Sadly this year I wont be going to the Mid Autumn festival - but I'd like to talk about Mid Autumn festivals past. 

Nanjingers on a Mid Autumn Fesitval san-bu (stroll)

The Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which this year - 2010 is the 21st of September.

In Nanjing there is no more pleasant way to spend a cool breezy autumn night than going along to Confucius temple, and seeing the decorations and eating delicious snacks, such as "moon-cake."

"One of my favourite snacks is given and received at this time by almost all people in Nanjing. I would describe the middle as having a fudge like consistency. Some of them are flavoured with many kinds of fruit or have a fudge flavour. During my stay in China each of my employers kindly gave all of us foreign teachers a pack of assorted moon-cakes."

For many years the story of the "Moon-Cake" has been an integral part of the Mid-Autumn Festival. Legend has it, that is was during the oppressive foreign occupation by the Mongols  (Yuan dynasty 1280- 1368 AD)  peasant revolts became more and more sporadic. As hundreds of thousands Han Chinese struggled to throw off the chains of subjugation from their Mongolian rulers.  It is believed that a man known as Liu Fu Tong devised a way of getting the mighty combined forces of the Chinese together by using the cover of a social gathering.

Having the permission to celebrate the Mid-Autumn festival by the governing authority. Lui Fu Tong started distributing his cakes to the wider community. Unbeknown to the authorities however, was that within these cakes laid the exact details of when and where they were to execute a  well co-ordinated attack on their oppressors.

Today there are many many kinds of Moon Cakes. Traditionally the cakes are made with egg yolk, however instead of being large cakes (such as to contain detailed plans) they are small bite sized cakes, usually given in packs containing several different flavoured cakes.

"Anyone trying to tell a Chinese student that the basis of the Mid - Autumn festival is basically shared by all cultures across the world; it marks the end of the farmer's work and signifies a time of bounty and food a plenty at harvest time, will most usually come against fierce denial."

The Legend of Chang'e (Pronounced Chung-gur) is a colloquial story told to all Chinese children, about the origins of their Mid-Autumn Festival. There are couple of variations of the story, but characteristic in Chinese traditional legend; there are the tragic lovers (Hou-yi and Chang'e, his hearts desire) involvement of heavenly powers and mystical intruige.

My favourite version combines the supernatural, with the physical. The goddess Chang'e was married to Hou-yi. Hou-yi was one day offered the pill of immortality by the emperor for his services as an archer. 

He prepared for eating the pill, however as duty called him away - Chang'e found it, spotting a beam of light under the floorboards - she took it and swallowed it. 

When Hou-yi returned home, he realized what had happened and blamed Chang'e. Finding that she now had the power to fly, Chang'e flew to the moon. Pursuing her Hou-yi could only fly half way to the moon.

There was a hare who lived on on the moon, and Chang'e demanded of the hare to make her another pill. If he could do this, she would be able to return to earth and be reunited with her husband.

In the meantime her husband managed to take residence in a palace in the sun. Every year on the fifteenth of the Month of the full moon. The Moon unites with the sun by displaying its brilliant harvest moon colour.

It is during this time that the two lovers every year reunite, and the whole of China enjoy an evening of unity and happiness.

The story continues as the hare on the moon strives to mix the perfect ingredients to give to Chang'e....... In order that she may be able to fly to her husband who is patiently waiting for her.

Comments

[sally]

Great post Mr. Stuart. The information about the legend and stuff was crazy deep. You wrote as though you were a witness.

You described the mooncake texture pretty perfectly. Usually the local school gives everyone a box of mooncake, and usually around this time the Chinese teachers visit your home, wish you a happy mooncake day and dump their box of inedible mooncakes on your kitchen table.

This year I have seven big expensive boxes of mooncake on my kitchen table. Although I am grateful, I dearly wish they would stop the pretence of saying that they bought them "especially for me." What a lie.

Myths are an important currency in society as they often fill in the gaps of how something or other originated. Basic Cosmologies usually are mythogical: it's a good stab at what may be the case. However it would be interesting to discover how mooncakes originally started.