Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival
Shoot for the Moon! You Might Land in the Cakes
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It’s that time of year again, where a full moon rises in a clear night sky and families gather around to eat delicious mooncakes. When I was living at home, I always knew when the Mid-Autumn Festival was around the corner because my grandma would come home from the Asian supermarket with fancy looking tins of packaged mooncakes. I would hungrily search through the tin, wondering which cakes had my favorite fillings, ready to dig in.
The mooncake (月饼) is a traditional pastry served during the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节). For over three thousand years, this holiday has celebrated the moon, the moon goddess Chang’e and the bountiful autumn harvest that she brings. Occurring on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese Lunar calendar, it will fall on Tuesday, Sept.