The Mid-Autumn Festival this year is 10 Sep 2022. Like Chinese New Year, it is in the lunar calendar, and falls on the 15th day of the eighth month. Although this festival is not mentioned in my middle-grade book (Secrets of the Great Fire Tree), it is an annual festival celebrated by the Chinese. Like the Dumpling Festival, this festival also has several names: Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节), Mooncake Festival, Lantern Festival. This is because there are two key aspects to the Mid-Autumn Festival : Mooncake and Lanterns. Let me give you a little background and how it’s celebrated in Singapore.
Mid-Autumn Festival Background
The moon, being at its biggest and roundest at mid-autumn, symbolises unity and harmony. Offerings are made to the moon and families get together in reunions, eating mooncake and drinking tea. Children get to stay up late and play with one another.
The most popular legend surrounding the festival is Chang-E 嫦娥, the Lady of the Moon. She is the reason why we make the offerings to the moon. She was married to Hou-yi 后羿, a hero worshipped for shooting down the nine suns. Loving his new-found fame, Hou-yi wanted to live forever and ordered the elixir of life to be found. Only Chang-E saw how he had become cruel and arrogant. When it was presented to him, Chang-E stole it. As soon as she drank it, she floated to the moon, where she remains till today.
Mooncake
Synonymous to Christmas, giving of mooncake is customary. Just like shops are inundated with attractively packaged gifts at Christmas, there is a plethora of mooncake for sale during this time. Departmental stores hold special Mooncake Fairs. If you ever find yourself in a country celebrating it, do check it out. It is an unforgettable experience. And I’m not just talking about the crowds.
Someone once told me, ‘The best thing about mooncakes is the boxes they come in.’ Indeed, the packaging are very much an art in itself. Mooncakes are often sold in packs of four. Designers have a field day coming up with ways of holding them. Not just your ordinary a square-shaped cake box . Here are some for you to enjoy. Indeed they are the packaging of mooncakes, not mini- furniture, stationery drawers, cosmetic sorters, sewing kits, treasure chests or even vintage lunch-boxes.
We’ve gone through a lot of trouble with the packaging. What about the mooncake itself? The traditional ones have brown pastry and filled with lotus-paste. Some have salted eggs, a symbolism to the note hidden in these first cakes leading to the uprising against the Yuan Dynasty.
This is another reason why we have mooncakes and lanterns. During this era, curfew was enforced, posts and messages were checked. Nevertheless, a rebellion was planned and the exact date and time of the uprising was communicated in a note was hidden in cakes. The guards were taken by surprise and the uprising was successful. Since it happened at midnight, lanterns were used.
Mooncakes have evolved to suit modern palates. All is not lost if you dislike the traditional lotus-paste filling. Modern fusion mooncakes have fillings that range from fruity to stodgy ones like chocolate truffles or ice-cream.
Those who dislike the pastry can now also opt for the snow-skin mooncakes. These snow icing open up the colour palette in mooncake stalls.
There’s so much choice, where does one start to decide what to buy? Fortunately, at Mooncake Fairs, you can taste the flavours when you go around the stalls. The mooncake is cut up into cubes and toothpicks are provided to pick up the little pieces.
At home, when serving mooncake to guests, you cut it in quarters. It is very sweet, and tea is usually drunk with it. Not surprisingly, tea companies have jumped on this lucrative band wagon, selling tea-infused mooncakes, with or without their own tea. I found this in a TWG brochure.
Piglet Biscuits (猪仔饼)
These are made to attract children with their cutsie little baskets. Traditionally, these biscuits are made from left-over dough from the mooncake pastry, decorated into little animals. Their prices are also a fraction of mooncake, so these are good alternatives for economising households.
Lanterns
During the run-up to this festival, you will see shops selling lanterns. The lanterns have evolved over the years. The paper lanterns you are accustomed to seeing, like the ones below, are mainly used for decorating.
But lanterns are not just used for display during this festival. They are a treat for children; this is the one night they can stay up late and walk about in the dark with their colourful lanterns. Naturally, for this target audience, they come in all shapes and sizes. Traditionally, these lanterns have a bamboo or metal frame and painted colourful cellophane paper wrapped round, like the bird in the bottom left-hand corner of the picture above. They come in many shapes, mainly animals and transportation. With the metal frames, they can be flattened to thin packages for sale.
In the middle of each is a candle holder. Naturally, for a young child this is difficult to handle, and many tears have been shed on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival because a child drops the lantern and the candle burns up the beautiful cellophane, leaving only the ugly frame.
Thankfully, today you can find battery-powered lanterns. Some even come with music when you turn it on. Be warned. Buying a child with one of these is synonymous to giving a drum kit. That tune will go on and on and on. And on.
If you are travelling to the Far-East, September is a good time to go as there are many colourful lantern events going on. If you are researching Chinese traditions other than Chinese New Year, the Mid-Autumn Festival is one that appeals to both children and adults.
Mid-Autumn Festival books
If you want to some books on the Mid-Autumn Festival, Loretta Seto’s Mooncake is a good picture book to introduce the festival. For middle-grade, check out Grace Lin’s Starry River of the Sky. It is inspired by the legends surrounding the Mid-Autumn festival. As in the style in this series, one of the tales in this book is about the Lady of the Moon 嫦娥.
Happy Mid-Autumn!
First published 24 Sep 2018. Updated 27 Aug 2022.
Justine Laismith 