Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

It was Mid-Autumn Festival on Sunday. We got a holiday out of it and lots and lots of mooncakes. Growing up in Canada, we celebrated this festival but I never realized how important the holiday is here. It turns out that it is the second most important holiday in China, only after Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). While preparing for class, we learned all about it. It is a time to celebrate abundance and togetherness. Families and friends get together to eat mooncakes under the moonlight. There are also many different legends surrounding the festival and they even have a version with a lady on the moon.

We had to call on our friends Sunrise and Cruise at bbq last Friday to check the ingredients of mooncakes for us. Since there is no English on most of them, we have no idea what the fillings are. Some of them are marked with Chinese characters on the mooncake but many just have a swirl pattern. We will be eating mooncakes for a couple of months.