The Mid-Autumn Festival
The date for the Mid-Autumn Festival changes every year – but thanks to my mother who reminded me many times, the festival will be on the 4th of October this year. Anyway, the Mid-Autumn Festival receives many different names in many different Asian cultures – the Moon Festival, the Harvest Moon Festival, the Mooncake Festival, and the Lantern Festival. But while there are many different names for this festival, the notable part of this tradition, for most Asian families, usually involves family gathering and eating mooncake – and sometimes, or in the ancient times, we celebrate the moon! The origin of this festival used to be about just worshipping and offering food to the moon. This moon worshipping actually started from an ancient Chinese myth – and there are actually two versions of this myth.
The first version of the myth – which I find beautiful and sad at the same time – describes a tragic separation between a hero and his wife. One time when ten suns rose together in the sky, this hero, being excellent at archery, shot down nine of them, leaving only one in the sky. Having performed this heroic deed, this hero was, one day, approached and given an elixir of immortality by an immortal. Not wanting to be immortal without his wife, however, this hero gave the elixir to the wife. When one of the hero’s apprentices found out about this, the apprentice snuck into the hero’s house and attempted to take the elixir by force from the hero’s wife. Refusing to give the elixir to the apprentice, the wife drank the elixir – and gaining supernatural power from the elixir, the wife flew into the sky. But not wanting to be separated from her husband, the wife took residence in the moon. After having learned what had happened, the hero, from then on, offered to his wife her favorite fruits and cakes in the yard and gave sacrifices to her. Learning about this tragic story, many people began participating in these sacrifices with the hero.
This version of the myth has been rewritten many times with alternative endings. Although many versions of the myth differ slightly, the beginning is very similar to one another in that the hero shot down nine of the suns with his archery skills. But in most common versions, the hero was pronounced as king by the thankful citizens as a result of what he had done. The hero, however, became a tyrannical ruler – and wanting to stay immortal, he found a magic potion to achieve his goal. Not wanting her husband to become immortal and continue hurting the citizens, the wife took the magic potion – and when the hero discovered what his wife did, he shot an arrow at her. Although the hero missed the arrow, the wife fled to the moon for shelter and lived there until she became the spirit of the moon. From then on, people commemorated the wife’s action and offered a sacrifice to her every Mid-Autumn holiday.
While I can’t speak for families in other Asian cultures, some Vietnamese families still occasionally put out pastries and fruits as offerings to the moon. Sometime in the Song Dynasty, this moon-worshipping practice was replaced by the custom of eating mooncakes – and this “new” custom gained more and more popularity after that time period. With thin pastry skin, typical mooncakes contain sweet lotus-seed fillings and one whole (or half) salted egg yolk in the center – and they look something like this:
A “traditional” mooncake is usually round – and it is said that the roundness symbolizes completeness, reunion, and the moon – and has some intricate illustrations on top of the crust. And as time passes, many people get creative with the design, inscribing things such as the company’s name, animal drawings, and other things on the crust:
Many have also diversified the fillings of the mooncake, adding new flavors such as red bean paste and black bean paste with various smashed nuts and seeds. And in my country, Vietnam, they often make animal-shaped mooncakes. While there are many different animal-shaped designs, my all-time favorite is the pig-shaped ones:
And due to high commercial drive, many mooncake manufacturers have introduced snow-skin mooncakes:
Brightly lit lanterns have also been included as part of the Mid-Autumn tradition – and to be honest, I still don’t know the original purpose of lanterns in connection to the festival other than that lanterns are decorative and festive. These lanterns are often hung on buildings or towers – some float them on the sky:
Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this post as much as I enjoy writing about the rich history of this festive holiday.
– Jason
The Junction Journal 