Silentroar wrote:
My family is celebrating the Mid-Autumn Harvest/Mooncake festival on Sunday. And whats this about Mooncake Muffins? They're just moonCAKES
I had to write a short piece for a class project about the ocasion so I might as well post if you want to hear:
Like Thanksgiving in the United States, the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival is a celebration of the Autumn harvest as well as a traditional time for family reunions.
The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day (full moon) of the eighth month of the Chinese Lunar Calendar, and in 2005, this day falls on Sunday, September 18th of the western Gregorian Calendar.
Traditionally, family members will try to make it home for a reunion and enjoy mooncakes (whose round shape represents unity and harmony) together. In the days before modern transportation, family members who live or work far away (which could mean even just a couple of counties away) may find it difficult to make it home in time. So in order to be reunited on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, family members would gather outside under the stars to gaze at the moon while eating mooncakes. They would be comforted by the thought that no matter where their loved ones were in China (in another province or half way across the kingdom), they would all be gazing at the same moon, and thus be reunited.
In this day and age, when families are sometimes scattered all over the world, it’s not always possible to be reunited by gazing at the moon. For example, when it is night here in <a place> and we gaze at the moon, my grandparents half way around the world in <a place> cannot see the moon, because it is morning where they are.
Nevertheless, my family continues the tradition of eating mooncakes, gazing at the moon, and recounting the fairy tale of Zhang Her, a beautiful maiden who was banished to the moon for stealing magical pills of immortality. In order to be reunited with my grandparents nowadays, we simply call them long-distance on Skype (an instant messenger service)
That's beautiful, Silentroar
I have to start that with my family!