I am naughty. I do mean the Mid-August Festival. It is funny to hear more and more people refer it as Moon Cake Festival since we eat Moon Cake, and I found good taste food is always an enjoyable thing for people no matter young or old. (Heard about the introduction of Wii? “It is designed for children from 3 to 90 in age”).
Let me post a picture of moon cake. Sorry for the error in light schema, so it does not look very delicious.
© Jian Shuo Wang
This is a Starbucks Moon Cake.
Moom Cake is a huge business, and normal moon cakes now sells at 200-300 RMB, and I doubt the margin is at least 80% (even including the cost of luxurious packaging). That is the reason why Starbucks and Haggen Daze and all five star hotels all jumped into the Moon Cake business.
OK. Enough about business. Let me say some wishes.
I wish my readers and friends a happy Mid-Autumn Festival, if you celebrate it. For many readers who don’t celebrate this holiday, let me tell you a little bit more about this festival.
Mid-Autumn Festival is About Family
It is a holiday to celebrate togetherness of the family. You may be surprised if I tell you this festival has been celebrated for more than 3000 years in China.
By its name, it is in the middle of Autumn, and by date, it is exactly the 15th day of the 8th month in Lunar Calendar. I would say the Lunar Calendar is a miracle that in the last one thousand years after Lunar Calendar was established, it always preciously describe the movement of moon. 15th of the month is always full moon, and at Mid-Autumn Festival, if you look up into the sky, you can always see (if the sky is clear) a full and bright round moon.
To eat Moon Cake (which is always round), and to observe the round moon is the tradition in China. Round means togetherness in Chinese culture, which we will do together as a family – Yifan, Wendy, and my parents.
So, again, happy mid-autumn festival!
Have a good dinner!
Happy mid-Autumn festival!!! I am officially full to the brim with my mum and dad-in law’s home made shanghainese food, moon cake and tiger beer… OMG – I can’t move!!!
@AussiePB, it is the first time I know someone “officially full”, and I am “officially amused” by the seriousness of the saying. :)
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! Jianshuo.
I came back from Guangzhou this morning to see my parents.
I had a lot of delicious food,such as mooncake,shaddock,chicken soup,chestnut.
Mid-autumn festival = thanksgiving in the west. Is a time to sit the whole faimily down and spend some quality time together. Happy mid-autumn festival to all.
Happy moon festival! We ate lots of yummy cake. Had about 1000 people at the MSFT moon festival in Redmond here. It’s amazing to see xinbux making mooncakes; how surprising!
Hope you had a good time yesterday, WJS.
a couple of questions:
“I would say the Lunar Calendar is a miracle that in the last one thousand years after Lunar Calendar was established, it always preciously describe the movement of moon. 15th of the month is always full moon, and at Mid-Autumn Festival, if you look up into the sky, you can always see (if the sky is clear) a full and bright round moon.”
What happened this year? The full moon is 2 days after mid-autumn festival… Last night was nice and clear, so i looked up and could see that the moon wasn’t completely round yet… The newspapers seem to agree, also.
I wish you and your family a most festive celebration, Jian Shuo. Yifan’s first Mid-Autumn Festival :-)
@Carroll, yesterday, we spend 1 hour to make Yifan fall asleep, and thought we can eat our moon cake after he sleeps. After he fell asleep, we just realize that we should have him (at least watch) us eat moon cake. :-) Not so experienced. We hope we do a better job next time. :-)
@Joshua Allen, you reminded me the great time I had in Microsoft and my last few visit to Redmond. Although now I generally enjoy the sunshine in California better, I still miss the great Lakes and Mountains in Seattle.
I knew your blog on the newspaper, and I think I’ll come here very often in future. :-)
wow, why it showed 6:21pm? my clock showed 5:21pm. Is it 1hour earlier Shanghai time than BJ time?
@Elaine, it is because of my server is in U.S. and they adjusted for daylight saving. I don’t want to adjust accordingly, so in long term, the time is always the right time for China.
Happy Mid-autumn Day!
Wow, 200-300 is a lot for mooncakes. What happened to the good, cheap ones?
I was messaging my friends there and asking them to send some, but may go to the local Asian grocery to see if they still have them.
Have a good break this week!
Good cheap one? Should be very cheap. Several RMB? Currently, very few people buy mooncake for themselves. They buy it just to send to friends as gift. That caused the high price of the mooncakes.
I love to eat mooncake….So yummy…