Mid-Autumn Festival

The Festival falls on the 15th day of the lunar month 8 in many East Asian lunisolar calendars (usually around mid- or late-September in the Gregorian Calendar). At this time, the moon is at its fullest and brightest, marking an ideal time to celebrate the abundance of the summer's harvest. The traditional food of this festival is the moon cake of which there are many different varieties.

There are many activities to celebrate the festival, especially in Hong Kong. I am not aware about other Asian countries. Here are the Hong Kong's Mid-Autumn Festival celebration thingies:

1. Family Dinner
They start the celebration with having a family dinner. I was luckily invited by my buddy, Zack, to have dinner with his family. We had hot pot which is similar with Japanese Shabu-shabu. My buddy told me Japan got the idea from China when Japan war back then. It is originally a winter dish. However since nowadays everybody has airco, they have hot pot other times all the year as well. Turn on the airco and have hot pot! Yum, lekker!

2. Mooncake

After having dinner, they eat mooncake. Typical mooncakes are either round or rectangular puck-shaped pastries, measuring about 10 cm in diameter and 4-5 cm thick. They have a relatively thin crust (2-3 mm), which surrounds a thick pasty filling and may contain yolks from salted duck eggs. Mooncakes are typically rich, heavy, and dense compared with most Western cakes and pastries. It is usually eaten in small wedges accompanied by Chinese Tea.

This cake is also pricey compared to the other cake. It costed me HK$40 for an eggy cake. I dont like this cake.

3. Children Activity
After all of gathering are over. Children are jumping around and yelling to their parents to take them to the nearest park to play with other children. During this night, there will be a lot of children in the street playing around with their lantern.


4. Lover Activity
For those who has couple already, usually they go out to see the moon. They will spend the whole night outside starring at the moon. Well, since I dont have couple here and Zack would not be mine that day, so I didnt experince this activity... hehe.. which means I dont have pics either.

5. Lantern Gala, Carnaval, and other Celebration.
There are a lot of celebration during mid-autumn festival. In my hall, there was a nice celebration where many lanterns are hung. Lantern festival is always related with wishing card and riddle card. Each lantern has a riddle, and if we can guess the answer, we will get a wishing card to be put which is believed a good luck.