Happy Lunar Festival!



Lunar Festival Picture

HAPPY LUNAR/MOON FESTIVAL 2007! SEPTEMBER 25!

To those who haven’t already noticed, today is an very important day for the Asian community.

Today, celebrates the festival of the moon.

For those who do not know, here is a excerpt from The University of Victoria (’new pop’)

No one can be sure of the origin of the Harvest Moon Festival (also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival). The origin was romanticised by the legendary story of Chang Er, who was believed to have taken a pill, become a fairy and flown to the moon to escape from the pursuit of her husband. It was thought that we could see Chang Er on the moon when it is at its brightest in mid-autumn (i.e. the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar). The exact date in the Western calendar changes from year to year but it is approximately in September.

An important part of the Chinese moon festival is the famous Chinese dessert/cake called ‘moon cake’. It is made out of flour glazed with a sweet liquid such as sugar or honey. Inside the ‘moon cake’ is filling consisting of red bean paste, lotus seed paste, seed variations or meat. Sometimes the egg yolk from a duck’s egg will be captured inside, thus making it look like the moon.

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Well, I was reminded of today yesterday from my relatives back in China. This festival is really important for people living in Asian countries. But once you live in a country that is influenced by Europeans and Maoris, the culture sometimes doesn’t come through, despite NZ being proud of being a multicultural country.

We ate at a restaurant in the City and there were so much to eat! We ordered too much to handle. So we took the rest home. Our family don’t have big appetites as opposed to other people/families. Haha.

We came home and got some ‘moon cakes’ to eat. A custom for eating ‘moon cakes’ is that everyone in the family must eat at least one part of the moon cake. So everyone gets a taste of all the flavours/types. I guess this is quite fair. It was delicious, like every year ^_^

Typical Moon Cake

We watched the Chinese channel CCTV 4. It featured the moon festival celebration/presentation. In fact, I just finished watching it. It was based on two parts of China. One of which was Xi’an but I didn’t quite get where that other one was held.

The presentation was STUNNING! This year, it featured a pond/water theme. All the platforms had water underneath with decorative lotus pads. Fireworks were constantly being let off and in tune with the music. It was what drew my attention. Great selection of artists: David Tao, Fei Yu Ching, even Korean’s Rain. The whole show was a BLAST!

When I see things like these, it makes me feel China is getting better by the day and is really beautiful when you take close looks at it. China overall may still have poor people etc but we are getting there!

SO:

HAPPY LUNAR/MOON FESTIVAL 2007! SEPTEMBER 25!

I’m tired. Shut’eye!