Bring out the Moon Cakes! 月饼

Next week is Chinese National Holiday as well as the Mid-Autumn Festival (or Moon Festival - zhong qui jie - 中秋节). So, we get a whole week off of school! I will be going to Nanchuan, about four hours south of Wanzhou to see my host family! (Pictures to come).

The Moon Festival is said to date back to the Tang Dynasty (618 AD) and celebrates the harvest moon. There are many different versions of the legend of zhong qui jie, the one I have been taught says that during ancient times, one day, ten suns appeared in the sky. The emperor ordered a famous archer to shoot down the extra nine suns. He did and a godess gave the archer a magic pill as a reward. Unfortunately, his wife, Chang E, took the pill without telling her husband and was thus banished to the moon, where she continues to live. Only during the Mid-Autumn Festival, when the moon is brightest are they able to see each other. Pretty tragic, yet romantic right? Anyways, during the Moon Festival, Chinese people head home to their families, have dinner, appreciate the moon and eat lots of moon cakes!

Moon cakes are hard to describe. The outside is dough and then the inside is really sugary. Some have nuts I am told, others even have meat. But I have only eaten the ones with really sweet flavored stuff inside, for example, one I just ate was peach flavored. 

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! 中秋节快乐