Mid Autumn Festival Series: Chinese Mid Autumn Festival and everything you need to know!

WHAT IS MID AUTUMN FESTIVAL?

Also known as Lunar Festival, it is a huge festival and one of the most important festivals in Chinese culture (other cultures celebrate Mid Autumn as well, such as the Vietnamese). I’ve made an 8 part Mid Autumn Festival Series so you can learn a little bit more each day about the festival to countdown so you’ll be totally ready the day of!

So what does it celebrate, when does it happen, what are some of the traditions to this festival, what are the legends to the festival and many more questions answered! Read on.

MID AUTUMN FESTIVAL SERIES: THE STORY OF WU GANG, THE WOODCUTTER

THE STORY OF WU GANG (吳剛), THE WOODCUTTER

So from where we left off from the previous post, The Story of Jade Rabbit, we realized that besides Chang’E and Jade Rabbit, there is someone else on the moon… This person is called, Wu Gang (吳剛), and he is a woodcutter. Actually, to be exact, that’s what he does 24/7. Once again, there are several variations of the story, but centre around a similar premise, so I picked the one that made most sense to moi. 

So what’s the story with him?

Mid Autumn Festival Series: Story of the Jade Rabbit

THE LEGEND OF THE JADE RABBIT (玉兔)

Previous post of the Mid Autumn Festival Series, we learned of the tragic love story of Chang’E and Hou Yi.  If you haven’t read it, catch up with that legend first and then come back here for the sake of better continuity. So why do the legends tell us there is a rabbit up on the moon with Chang’E, the Goddess of the Moon?

Mid Autumn Festival Series: The Origin of Mooncakes

THE ORIGIN OF MOONCAKES

In the previous post of the Mid Autumn Festival Series, we did Mooncake 101 and we learned why we eat mooncake and the various common fillings and types of mooncakes. If you’ve missed that post, please read it here. Some of my super philosophical friends will for sure ask the next question on their list, which is, who invented mooncakes and what’s their origin? Good question!

Mid Autumn Festival Series: Mooncakes & Everything You Need to Know About Them

WHAT ARE MOONCAKES (月餅)?

During the Free Walking Tours that I run in Central, Hong Kong (for more info on this, please visit Humidwithachanceoffishballs.com), I have been bombarded (that might be a too powerful word but you get what I mean) in the month of August and September with questions regarding what are those round things advertised on every billboard in the MTRs and around Hong Kong.

Those my friends are called mooncakes and they are consumed during Mid Autumn Festival. One major custom of Mid Autumn is that we give mooncakes to friends and family and we also eat mooncakes under the full moon on the day of Mid Autumn Festival. Mid Autumn Festival is all about the worship of the moon, and we love cake, so mooncake it is! So what’s inside a mooncake?

Mid Autumn Festival Series: How to Make a Traditional DIY Pomelo Lantern

HOW TO MAKE A TRADITIONAL POMELO LANTERN

Sure, there is an assortment of lanterns out there that run the gamut from Pikachu to fluffy rabbits; however, wouldn’t you want to bring out a lantern that was the one and only in the world and was only exclusive to you? Just imagine this:

POMELO: $10 HKD

RABBIT LANTERN: $30 HKD

PIKACHU LANTERN: $35 HKD

HOMEMADE POMELO LANTERN: PRICELESS

For everything else, you can pay with MasterCard (and no I’m not sponsored by MasterCard but would most definitely be opened to the idea). Anyways, let’s get started shall we?

Mid Autumn Festival Series: How to Peel a Pomelo like a Pro

ASIAN LIFE HACK: HOW TO PEEL A POMELO LIKE A PRO

I always thought that opening a pomelo was super easy, until I was speaking to my friend and then saw her doing it. You’d think she was sumo wrestling instead of opening a fruit by the sound of her grunts. It seems like the trick my mom has always taught me since I was a child is not so well known after all…

Let’s back things up.  We eat pomelo (沙田柚 in Cantonese), which is a Chinese grapefruit (Mandarin speakers call it 柚子, which is exactly what we would call a grapefruit) during Mid Autumn Festival. If you don’t know what Mid Autumn Festival is, go read the first post in this Mid Autumn Festival Series called  Chinese Mid Autumn Festival and Everything You Need to Know and then come back here. I’ll wait =)

The pomelo compliments the festival because its shape and taste. The Mid Autumn Festival is a festival for the worship and appreciation of the moon and of reunion of the family; the pomelo is indeed large, round and yellow-ish (the Chinese ones are yellowish and the Thai pomelos are greenish) in colour so it is very complementary to the values of Mid Autumn Festival. Moon cakes are also one of the must eats during the festival and they are very heavy in taste and the pomelo is very tart so it is a good juxtaposition to the taste of moon cakes.

So how do you open it?