The moon festival is the second most important festival in the traditional Chinese calendar and occurs on the fifteenth day of the eighth month. The autumn season in the Chinese calendar is the seventh, eighth and ninth months, with the fifteenth day being the middle day of a thirty day month. On the night of the fifteenth day the moon is thought to be brighter, fuller and more beautiful than at any other time, hence why the mid-autumn festival is also the moon festival.
The moon festival is celebrated in different ways in different parts of China, though it is most commonly celebrated by a family reunion dinner (in Chinese culture the full moon is a symbol of family reunion) where sweetened wine is drunk and lotus roots, water chestnuts and of course moon cakes eaten.
Myths and legends abound in Chinese culture about the moon, hence the popularity of this festival. Perhaps the best known myth is of Chang'er flying to the moon.
Chang'er
In this story, it is said that a long time ago, there were 10 suns in the sky, causing great misery to the inhabitants of earth, with the seas boiling, mountains falling and the earth cracking. An expert archer Hou Yi decided to help and took his bow and shot down nine of the ten suns. Because of this the people of the earth made him king. However, his pride soon lead him to become a tyrant, drinking, womanising and killing people as he liked. He became much disliked by the people, and seeing that his days were numbered went to see Wang Mu the Fairy Queen in search of the elixir of immortality. Although he obtained the elixir, his wife Chang'er drank it before he could to save the people from his tyranny. Chang'er was transported to the moon where she still lives.
A special cake is eaten during the mid-autumn festival, called the moon cake. The making of moon cakes dates from the Tang dynasty (618 -907). During the Ming dynasty is was the custom to exchange moon cakes as greetings at family reunions and it was during the Qing dynasty that the moon cakes found today (a cake usually stuffed with walnut paste) was established. The ingredients used in moon cakes do however differ from area to area in China. Those of Suzhou are similar to shortbread and have several layers containing bean paste, ginkgo spiced salt or meat, usually pork. Beijing mooncakes are stuffed with vegetables, while Chaozhou ones are oily and very sweet. Cantonese moon cakes are oil-rich and have lots of stuffing inside little dough. They can be stuffed with coconut paste, lotus seed paste, various fruits, seeds and nuts, egg yolk, chicken, ham or date paste!