There are different shapes of mooncakes with different stuffings and skins. Usually, the skin is made of wheat powder, but now there are also ice skins made of sticky rice powder. The stuffing of mooncakes varies depending on the cities and provinces: Beijing style, Jiangsu style, Ningbo style, Shanghai style, Hong Kong style. In northern and southern China, the stuffing of the mooncakes is usually sweet, made of ingredients like sugar, red beans, and lotus seed. In the middle region, there are mooncakes made of meat.
I still remember the first Mid-Autumn Festival I spent outside of China. I was 18 years old, a college freshman living alone in Canada. One of my Chinese friends in class brought me a cream and egg yolk mooncake that he found on the internet. There was no celebration. All I had for my 18th Mid-Autumn festival was a mooncake. In my second year at university, I had a couple of close friends in school who were Chinese international students like me. We went to the grocery store together, and cooked food together. That night, we did not eat any mooncakes.
If you are a Chinese reader, you might have heard of the legend of Chang’e. We all heard this story growing up. Chang’e was once a human living with her husband, Oh Yi. Her husband was rewarded with the medicine of immortality by the Queen Mother after he shot down nine of the ten suns, which saved people from drought and endless heat. Chang’e was first responsible for keeping the medicine, yet to protect it from a villain, she took the medicine herself and flew to the moon. There was a rabbit on the moon, who was the moon god according to a statement I Chinese legend. In the end, Chang’e and the rabbit continue to together on the moon.
At Mid-Autumn Festival time, Chinese families set snacks and fruits on a table and offer them to the moon god. Each family member worships the moon with red candles. In this way, their wishes for their family’s health, prosperity and happiness will come true. In recent generations, family members will also get together to enjoy the moonlight.
In Beijing, families buy or make Lord Rabbit figures for their children. The toy has the head of the rabbit and the body of a human, with armor and flags. The Lord Rabbit is the image of the jade rabbit living on the moon.
In Hong Kong, the fire dragon dance is the most famous custom of the Mid-Autumn Festival. The dragon can be 70-meters long, made of pearl grass and joss sticks. The dancers lift the dragon together under fabulous fireworks.
The ways Chinese people celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival vary depending on the geographical regions, yet each region still recognizes this as a special day to celebrate family and friendships. In my second year living outside of China, my friends and I did not celebrate the festival in the traditional styles. We even made Japanese food instead of cooking traditional dishes which Chinese people eat on this date. For us, the real purpose of the festival was to come together and spend time with each other. But lingering in our many conversations, as we devoured the delicious sushi, was a nagging question: “Must we preserve tradition and pass them to the next generations at all costs?” We challenged that question with the hypothesis that culture is a dynamic energy…. that there is an unstoppable interchange with other cultures that develop new interpretations of old traditions and culture.
This writer sees that people are so busy going to work and school and living farther and farther apart. I don’t know many people living in urban areas who still practice traditional Mid-Autumn festival rituals. People might send mooncakes as gifts, but they rarely make or even eat them. Often, they complain they have no time. However, I believe that the wish to be with those we love continues to be the real motivation to celebrate Mid-Autumn festival. I will never forget the many special times I have enjoyed.
