Posted
on September 19, 2013
The
Mid-Autumn Festival, which is celebrated in China, Taiwan, Vietnam,
the Philippines, and Hong Kong, is all about gathering and giving
thanks. The gathering includes harvesting (gathering together) crops
as well as families gathering together to celebrate. The thanks is
for the bountiful harvest and for peaceful get-togethers.
This
festival is also about the moon. People make or buy, share, and eat
mooncakes. These round pastries are usually filled with red bean
paste or lotus seed paste. In the middle of the paste filling is the crumbled egg yolk of a salted
duck egg.
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| Mooncake boxes |
The
round shape of these mooncakes symbolizes completeness and unity.
Although they are generally pretty small (a few inches across),
families share them by cutting them into small wedges. In Hong Kong,
most people buy mooncakes in fancy presentation boxes for their
relatives.
The
Mid-Autumn Festival is also a Lantern Festival, and lanterns are
displayed everywhere. In Hong Kong there are lantern processions,
dragon and lion dances, and even towers of bamboo and stone lit up in
a kind of tall bonfire!
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| Can you spot the young woman with the umbrella strolling past this lantern display in Hong Kong? |
Modern life, meet holiday traditions!
Some
people in Hong Kong are urging more modest packaging for commercially
made mooncakes in order to spare the environment from waste.
Another
trend is people wanting to have less oily and sugary mooncakes. One
healthier version is the “snow skin mooncake.” This treat is
similar to mochi ice cream; it has a glutinous rice crust. It must be
kept frozen until serving time, and it's served cold. Snow skin
mooncakes are filled with fruit jam, chocolate, coffee, cheese, or
other delicious things.
In
Hong Kong, one tradition is huge structures made of lanterns. This
year a sculpture has been created using 7,000 recycled plastic water
bottles with LED lights. It's more than 65 feet in diameter and 33
feet high! The sculpture is called rising moon—see why:
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| This is what the sculpture looks like from the inside... |
Also
on this date:
Check
out my Pinterest pages on September
holidays, September
birthdays,
and historical
anniversaries in September.
And
here are my Pinterest pages on October
holidays, October
birthdays,
and historical
anniversaries in October.
The Mid Autumn Festival in Philippines is a great time to celebrate with family and friends.
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