Mid-Autumn Festival Essay, Research Paper
The Mid-Autumn Festival occurs every year on the fifteenth day of the eighth
month. This date is in respect to the lunar calendar which is used by the Chinese.
In the Gregorian calendar, used in America, this day would be approximately the
fifteenth of September.
On this day, the moon is supposed to be at its fullest and brightest of the year.
The whole family eats out or in their yards to celebrate and watch the full moon.
Children play with paper lanterns and the same lanterns are hung outside the front
doors of buildings, such as houses and restaurants. Mooncakes are eaten and
Chinese tea is usually used to wash it down.
The name, mooncake, is self-explanatory. It is a round cake, in the shape of a
moon. The ingredients of the cake consist of lotus seeds, made into a sort of paste.
The paste is surrounded by a crust, which usually has four Chinese characters
imprinted on the top. These characters either tell the type of mooncake it is (i.e.
regular, lotus with egg yolk), the name of the store it was bought from, or just
simply says ?mooncake?.
The origin of the mooncake is in China, during the Sang Dynasty. The Han
people were conquered by the Mongolians and named the new dynasty Yuan. The
Han people did not like living under Mongolian rule. Therefore, they wanted to
rebel and retake China. However, the Mongolians had taken this into consideration
and did not allow the people to communicate (especially public gatherings) or to
possess sharp, pointed weaponry. Thus, the people had to find a way of
communicating secretly. One group of men thought up the idea of placing a piece of
paper with the date of the rebellion inside little cakes, which they would sell to the
the Mongolian soldiers to sell the cakes, they told them that the cakes were a sort of
offering to the gods. They said that they would pray that the Mongolian emperor
could have eternal life. The gullible soldiers quickly agreed. Everyone received the
cakes and the rebellion date was set for the fifteenth day of the eighth month. Since
the Mongolians could not read Chinese, they did not know of the rebellion, were
caught by surprise, and defeated. From then on, the fifteenth day of the eighth
month was known as the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival to celebrate the day of the
rebellion.
Many myths are formed about holidays. One which goes with this holiday is
about a time when the world had ten suns and the earth was hot and dry. Nothing
could survive. A hero stepped forward and used nine arrows to shoot down nine of
the suns. He was crowned king and married a beautiful wife. Within years of his
reign, he became selfish and greedy, a dictator. He wanted to live forever and make
the people suffer. Therefore, he mixed a powerful potion and made a pill which,
when eaten, would give the person eternal life. His wife found him out and stole the
pill. To keep her husband from eating it, she ate it herself. However, after she ate
it, she felt her body get lighter and lighter until she was floating. She kept rising
higher and higher until she reached the moon, where she lives until this day. There
are many variations of this story, such as the bringing of a rabbit with her because
the gods wanted to reward her bravery by giving her company for her loneliness.
Some people say that they can sometimes see a woman in the moon with a rabbit
and a tree (another variation).