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Saturday, September 17, 2005
Mooncakes to celebrate mid-autumn Festival
The Moon Festival (also called the Mooncake or Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival) draws near. This year, it falls on September 18. The day beckons family and friends to come together, share ritual food and revel in the beauty of the harvest moon, the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. Going by an ancient Chinese practice, the celebration isn’t complete without the traditional mooncakes, called yueh ping.
Get your mooncakes from Big Mao. Deliciously filled with sweet black bean paste, Big Mao mooncakes are available solo and party packs to be shared among family, as offerings to ancestors or as gifts for senior relatives.
The mooncake is central to the Chinese celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival or the “zhong qui jie”. Dating back to the Tang Dynasty in China (618 A.D.), this sweet cake is filled with a rich history and romantic myths about its origins.
One favorite story told to children is that of the moon fairy living in a crystal palace, who dances on the moon’s shadowed surface. The legend surrounding the “lady living in the moon” dates back to ancient times, to a day when ten suns appeared at once in the sky, causing havoc on the earth. Seeing the havoc caused by their appearance, the Jade Emperor ordered a famous archer, Hou Yi, to shoot the nine extra suns. When the task was done, the Goddess of Western Heaven rewarded the archer with a pill that would make him immortal.
His wife, Chang-O, found the pill, took it, and was banished to the moon as a result. Legend says that her beauty is greatest on the day of the Moon festival.
Another legend tells of the “Man in the Moon” who carried a writing tablet, where he recorded the names of the newborn and their future partners. Thus, the Chinese saying that marriages are made in heaven and prepared on the moon, The man who records unions is the old man of the moon (Yueh Lao Yeh).
Accordingly, many Chinese weddings are held during the eighth lunar month.
Glory in the moon’s magnificence with a spread of good food. Celebrate family and friendship. To order mooncakes now, one may call Big Mao at tel. nos. 231-8380 and 415-8997.
(September 17, 2005 issue)
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