The Moon Fetival
 

On the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, the moon is round and the Chinese people mark their Moon (or Mid-autumn) Festival. The round shape to a Chinese means family reunion. Therefore the Moon Festival is a holiday for members of a family to get together wherever it is possible.
On that day sons and daughters will bring their family members back to their parents' house for a reunion. Sometimes people who have already settled overseas will come back to visit their parents on that day.

As every Chinese holiday is accompanied by some sort of special food. On the Moon Festival, people eat moon cakes, a kind of cookie with fillings of sugar, fat, sesame, walnut, the yoke of preserved eggs, ham or other material. In Chinese fairy tales, there live on the moon the fairy Chang E, a wood cutter named Wu Gang and a jade rabbit which is Chang E's pet. In the old days, people paid respect to the fairy Chang E and her pet the jade rabbit.

The custom of paying homage to the fairy and rabbit is gone, but the moon cakes are showing improvement every year. There are

moon cake
hundreds of varieties of moon cakes on sale a month before the arrival of the Moon Festival this year. Some moon cakes are of very high quality and very delicious. An overseas tourist is advised not to miss it if he or she happens to be in China during the Moon Festival.

An Introduction
 

Chinese people love festivals and there are many festivities. Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the most popular ones. In fact it is so popular that many places in China designate it as a public holiday. Many historians come up with different versions as to the origin of this festival. I am more in favor that Mid-Autumn Festival is a festival to celebrate the harvest for the year. China has been an agricultural country for thousands of years. After a full year of hard labor, the farmers have to find a way to celebrate after the harvest is done. There is no better month to hold the occasion than August. And what better day than the 15th of August ( lunar calendar ) when the moon is full. It is no coincidence that this year (1998), the Mid-Autumn Festival falls on October 5th and the Thanksgiving Day in Canada falls on October 12th, just one week apart. Both days are celebrating the harvest time. Aian Moon Festival

Moon Cake or Mid-Autumn Festival
 

The Moon Cake or Mid-Autumn Festival commemorates the patriot Shu Yuan Zhang, who plotted to overthrow the tyrannical rule of the Yuan dynasty in the 14th century, and is said to have passed his plans to his fellow rebels hidden in mooncakes. Hence today, these moon-shaped pastries with sweet fillings of red bean and lotus seed paste are exchanged as gifts. Lanterns of all shapes and sizes are carried in processions. In Singapore the Chinese Garden is the special venue for this most beautiful of all the Chinese festivals.

Full Moon stand of the happy families
 

we like have it with families to see moon

Home town moon is the most bright
 

The people not in home often miss families and see moon to think home town

Miss families in the moon
 

I feel little loney without families

Good stuff, Billy. I enjoyed reading your posts and love the paintings - especially the full moon at night ones.

Mid-autumn festival in August? That's still Summer. Fall (autumn?) starts on September 23rd this year so October would be right.:confused:
Nice pictures, Billy.

Ancient cultures mark their seasonal fests at times that seem a little odd to us, because the seasons don't fall quite where they did a couple of thousand years ago...at least, that's what my memory says, anyway.

And I should point out that Billy may possibly be having a small struggle with English here. September 23rd is the Autumnal Equinox this year, so perhaps he's trying to describe a harvest festival and was just calling it mid-autumn.

They harvest rather early.:confused:

My company has a large manufacturing facility in Taiwan. We are getting ready to ramp up production on some units and this week was going to be the week we started.

Someone pointed out that Thursday is "Moon Day" and no one would be at the factory at all and only a handful of people would be there Friday. SO, we had to reschedule.

Also, the moon cakes I've had are the equivalent of the "holiday fruitcake" that gets passed around year after year here.

Don't like MOON CAKE
 

In fact, I don't so like moon cake. It is the fextival. i have to get it to celebrate.

Fruitcake is actually pretty good if you submerge it in rum for a week.
We used to make fruitcake for Christmas every year, using dried instead of candied fruit. It was a very heavy batter and without a commercial mixer it had to be mixed by hand. I'd be up to my elbows in batter for an hour.
I noticed a lot less hair on my arms when I was done.:D