Zee Wong

    zedwong@163.com

    THE moon gives us endless imagination and aspiration. The ancient Greeks venerated Artemis as the moon goddess with a bow and arrows, while ancient Chinese sent Chang’e and Yutu (Jade Rabbit) to the moon with their imagination. Regardless of one’s ethnicity, the dream of flying to the moon is universal.

    According to the traditional Chinese calendar, Mid-Autumn Festival occurs Aug. 15. August is the second month of the fall. We call the second object in a sequence “仲”(zhòng), according to a traditional ordinal system. “仲” is similar in pinyin and in writing as “中”(zhōng), which means “middle” in English. This is why we call the festival “Mid-Autumn.” During the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, families gather together to enjoy the full moon and eat delicious moon cake.

    A moon cake is a round, thick and sugary pancake that resembles the moon. The most popular flavor of moon cake is lotus seed with salted egg yolk. There are other flavors such as sesame, osmanthus and vegetable.

    The skin of traditional moon cake is made of syrup and has a yellow coating. However, snowy moon cake has its skin made of glutinous rice and has a white coating. Snowy moon cakes are stored in refrigerators before being sold.

    While eating moon cakes, family members ought to observe a ritual. Since ancient China was a patriarchal society, the patriarch of family, usually the oldest male member, cuts the moon cake into pieces.

    The number of pieces is the same as the number of people in the family. (If someone in the family is not present, we still save that person a part.) Then the entire family shares the moon cake. This ritual emphasizes the family union and the sharing of family resources.

    The tradition of celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival originated from Houyi, a young man gifted with mighty strength. He used a bow and arrows to shoot nine out of 10 suns from the sky. Before then, people were tormented by heat and thirst.

    Houyi married a beautiful lady called Chang’e and taught archery to elite young men. One student, Pengmeng, had bad intentions. He knew that Houyi possessed an elixir of immortality, so Pengmeng tried to steal it.

    However, Chang’e caught him. She grabbed the elixir and swallowed it. Instantly, she floated up to the air. Chang’e was not willing to be separated from her husband, so she landed and resided on the moon with a pet rabbit named Yutu.

    When Houyi learned what happened, he was extremely sad. He went into the yard and called out his wife’s name. While screaming at the sky, he noticed that the moon was bright and full. Soon he recognized a figure in the moon. Houyi knew that it was Chang’e, so he ran to set up a table with her favorite fruits and desserts to show his love. This tradition evolved to become the Mid-Autumn Festival.Zee Wong is a Chinese student at Carnegie Mellon University who is also offering an innovative course in Chinese language and culture to multinational students and professionals.