fishhoektaichi.za.net
8 September 2005
The Chinese Moon Festival, or sometimes called the Mid-Autumn Festival, takes place on the 5th day of the eighth lunar month. The festival dates back to the Tang dynasty 618 A.D. and celebrates the biggest and brightest full moon of the year, the harvest moon.
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.
Activities include not only big family reunions, but also moon gazing activities, feasting on moon cakes, as well as dragon and lion dancing.
As with many Chinese celebrations, there are ancient legends to explain the holiday. The Chinese were, and still are, an agricultural society. In ancient times, they planted and harvested by the lunar calendar, using the moon as an important time reference and guide.
I. The Lady – Chang Er
The time of this story is around 2170 B.C. The earth once had ten suns circling over it, each took its turn to illuminate to the earth. But one day all ten suns appeared together, scorching the earth with their heat. The earth was saved by a strong and tyrannical archer Hou Yi. He succeeded in shooting down nine of the suns. One day, Hou Yi stole the elixir of life from a goddess. However his beautiful wife Chang Er drank the elixir of life in order to save the people from her husband’s tyrannical rule. After drinking it, she found herself floating and flew to the moon. Hou Yi loved his divinely beautiful wife so much, he didn’t shoot down the moon.
Another legend goes that the builder or architect named Hou Yih. Hou Yih built a beautiful jade palace for the Goddess of the Western Heaven or sometimes called the Royal Mother. The Goddess was so happy that she gave Hou Yih a special pill that contained the magic elixir of immortality. But with it came the condition and warning that he may not use the pill until he had accomplished certain things.
Hou Yih had a beautiful wife named Chang Er. Chang Er was as curious as she was beautiful. One day she found the pill and without telling her husband, she swallowed it.
The Goddess of the Western Heaven was very angry and as a punishment, Chang Er was banished to the moon where, according to the legend, Chang Er can be seen at her most beautiful on the night of the bright harvest moon.
Another version of the legend goes: Houyi (or Yi) was the hero who shot the suns in the ancient mythology of China.
Legend says Yi was very good at archery. There were once ten suns in the sky, which made plants wither, and fierce beasts run wild to imperil people. It was too hot to live under the suns. To save the people, Yi started to shoot the suns. He shot down nine of them one by one, and he might have shot the last one if not called off by others. Thus the severe drought was gone. He also got rid of those fierce animals for the people.
It is said Yi’s wife was Chang Er, a legendary lady in the famous story, “Chang Er flying to the moon.” Chang Er swallowed the elixir stolen from her husband, and she flew to the moon and became the goddess of the moon, who has lived in the palace on the moon ever since.
Yi was killed by Fengmeng, a disciple of Yi who learned to shoot from him.
II. The Man – Wu Kang
Wu Kang was a shiftless fellow who changed apprenticeships all the time. One day he decided that he wanted to be an immortal. Wu Kang then went to live in the mountains where he importuned an immortal to teach him. First the immortal taught him about the herbs used to cure sickness, but after three days his characteristic restlessness returned and he asked the immortal to teach him something else. So the immortal decided to teach him chess, but after a short while Wu Kang’s enthusiasm again waned. Then Wu Kang was given the books of immortality to study. Of course, Wu Kang became bored within a few days, and asked if they could travel to some new and exciting place. Angered with Wu Kang’s impatience, the master banished Wu Kang to the Moon Palace telling him that he must cut down a huge cassia tree before he could return to earth. Though Wu Kang chopped day and night, the magical tree restored itself with each blow, and thus he is up there chopping still.
III. The Hare – Jade Rabbit
In this legend, three fairy sages transformed themselves into pitiful old men and begged for something to eat from a fox, a monkey and a rabbit. The fox and the monkey both had food to give to the old men, but the rabbit, empty-handed, offered his own flesh instead, jumping into a blazing fire to cook himself. The sages were so touched by the rabbit’s sacrifice that they let him live in the Moon Palace where he became the “Jade Rabbit.”
IV. The Cake – Moon Cake
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.
During the Yuan dynasty (A.D.1280-1368) China was ruled by the Mongolian people. Leaders from the preceding Sung dynasty (A.D.960-1280) were unhappy at submitting to foreign rule, and set how to coordinate the rebellion without it being discovered. The leaders of the rebellion, knowing that the Moon Festival was drawing near, ordered the making of special cakes. Backed into each moon cake was a message with the outline of the attack. On the night of the Moon Festival, the rebels successfully attacked and overthrew the government. What followed was the establishment of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368-1644). Today, moon cakes are eaten to commemorate this legend.
Moon Cakes
Ingredients
homemade dough or tubes of ‘ready to use’ dough
1 small jar of grape jam or bean paste
If using home made dough, roll out to about 1/4″ thickness. Cut into rounds with a cookie cutter. If using prepared dough from the tube, roll 1/4″ thin and shape or cut into 2″ rounds. Place the rounds on a cookie sheet and let rest for a few minutes. Prick the rounds with a fork to prevent puffing while cooking. Have an adult bake the rounds or ‘moon cakes’ until puffed, light golden in colour and cooked through. The adult should carefully remove the sheet from the oven to a cooling rack with oven mitts. Let cool. With a spatula, remove the ‘moon cakes’ to a plate. Spread jam or bean paste on one moon cake and top it with another moon cake. If the moon cakes are thick, split them in half then spread jam or bean paste inside. Celebrate!
The Mid-Autumn Moon
by Li Qiao
A full moon hangs high in the chilly sky,
All say it’s the same everywhere, round and bright.
But how can one be sure thousands of li away
Wind and perhaps rain may not be marring the night?
The Yo-Mei Mountain Moon
by Li Bai
The autumn moon is half round above the Yo-mei Mountain;
The pale light falls in and flows with the water of the Ping-chiang River.
Tonight I leave Ching-chi of limpid stream for the three Canyons.
And glide down past Yu-chow, thinking of you whom I cannot see.