Have you attempted asking any of your Chinese friends or coworkers what exactly is the Mid-Autumn Festival? Have they responded with something about the moon, a bunny or simply by shoving another mooncake in your mouth? We were also confused -- confused by the crowds of men and women waving mooncake coupons, dubious of the edibility of cured meat mooncakes (are you sure that baking jerkey into sugar, dairy and pastry is a good idea?) and confused as to how a bunny would have landed on the moon.
Thankfully, we have China expert Dora Su on hand to enlighten us all on the ways of the sometimes delicious but oft confusing Moon Festival. Read on for her wisdom...
The Mid-Autumn festival, also known as the Moon Festival, is one of the most celebrated and romantic traditional festivals in China. Like many festivals, it's doubled-up with food -- roasted turkey with Christmas Eve, chocolate with Valentines』 Day, and the MUST EAT on Moon Festival? Moon cake.
In traditional Chinese literature, the moon is often associated with long distance, missing someone, reunion and home. Chinese tradition firmly believes that there is only one moon visible in the universe, so THE moon becomes the connection between families and friends who are scattered all over the world. During traditional festivals, which remind people of a shared history and cultural identity, Chinese tend to feel more homesick than ever. Just as the famous poet LI Bai (李白) wrote: Looking up you see the bright moon, looking down you miss your hometown (舉頭望明月，低頭思故鄉).
The Moon Festival is not only celebrated in China, but also in many other Asian countries such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, etc.
Where do moon cakes come from?
There are two origin stories for Moon Cakes: (which one you believe?)
During the Yuan Dynasty, there were a secret rebellion planned among Chinese people to overthrow the Mongolian governance. Knowing the Moon Festival was near, the leader of the rebellion packed messages with the outline of the attack within moon cakes』 filling, and thus secretly spread the rebellion instructions. On the night of the Moon Festival, the uprisings successfully overthrew the government, and since then moon cakes have maintained their heroic status.
Another story involves a beauty, a thief, an elixir and a rabbit.
Once upon a time there, was a beautiful woman called Chang』e. Her husband was the famous 「shot 9 suns down and saved the world」 archer: hou』yi. For his achievement, he won an elixir from the Queen of Heaven (wang mu niang niang) and gave this elixir to his wife Chang』e to take care of. One day an evil man named Peng Meng was trying to steal the elixir. Trying to protect the elixir, Chang'e swallowed it herself (I don’t know how that qualifies as 「protection」 though). The moment she drank it, she flew up into the sky, and her love for her husband drew her towards the moon, the nearest place to the earth. For all eternity, she must live up there.
The beautiful Chang'e spending eternity on the moon...with a rabbit.
Since then, every year on the Moon Festival we eat moon cakes to remember the beautiful immortal woman who lives in her Moon Palace up above. Many years later, a very self- sacrificing rabbit offered to allow a hungry immortal to eat her. For her sacrifice, she was sent to the Moon Palace to become a jade immoral rabbit to accompany beautiful Chang』e, forever. So now our moon cakes have a rabbit pattern on the pastry.
Yeah, I know, this legend does not make any sense but I guess that's why it's called a legend.
What do you eat with moon cakes?
There are many kinds of moon cakes, but most of them are quite greasy and filling. They contain a high percentage of fat and sugar. Therefore, to balance the sweetness or greasiness, here are some drinks and snacks to pair with them:
Sweet moon cakes with light green tea
Greasy moon cakes with Pu』er Tea
Salty moon cakes with Wulong Tea
Moon cakes with red wine
Moon cakes with low sugar fruit
Moon cakes with apple vinegar (or other fruit vinegar)
How to compliment (or insult) your friends with moon cakes
There are fancy and modern moon cakes such as seafood moon cakes, French-style moon cakes (which is a combination of French bakery methods with Chinese traditional moon cake methods), ice-cream moon cakes, etc. (Check out the "mookies" for one of our favorite dessert places, Strictly Cookies, or waffle mooncakes from Mr Waffle.) If your friends give you these kinds, usually they are wealthy or have good social status, and you are significant to them.
In traditional moon cakes, there are very precious and universally-loved flavors such as Suzhou's fresh meat moon cakes from traditional bakeries. People queue for up to 10 hours just to be able to buy these limited editions. If you get that and they are authentic, the gifter must really love you.
There are other generally popular flavors such as lotus paste with egg yolk (classy and tasty -- very sweet though), spicy beef ones (only found in particular provinces that have spicy addictions), etc. So if you get these kinds, it also shows your friends still love you quite a lot. There are also mediocre flavors, such as red bean paste, or some other standard flavors like fruity or salty. If you get these kinds...well, the gifters are still your friends (but maybe not your besties).
BUT: If you get Five Nuts/Mixed Nuts (五仁) moon cakes from your friend, it means they really do not like you, or at least that they're trying to play a trick on you. Five Nuts moon cakes should have officially been kicked out of China last year. Literally, nobody likes them.
Egg yolk moon cake -- yum!
There are also many jokes about how people use this taste of moon cakes to torture those they hate or boyfriends that have been doing everything wrong. So, if you get that flavor of moon cake from your friends, maybe you really annoyed them somehow, or they may not like you at all, or, most likely it is a big joke saying that your friend wants to tease you or "torture" you somehow.
But still, most likely, you will get a whole set of overly fancy packed moon cakes as a gift from a friend. This might be the most boring one, but at least your friends aren't trying to send you passive-aggressive messages.
Some things you may not know about moon cakes...
BE REALLY CAREFUL when buying moon cakes from the internet, as the online shops are not certified and have not passed quality control.
DIY Moon cakes have become a hit: you can go to some bakeries and design your own masterpieces.
Ice cream moon cakes are not allowed as carry-ons on a flight, because they are considered a liquid. Also be careful with storage of ice cream moon cakes, because many shops use dry ice which might explode!
If your company gave you moon cakes, you have already paid tax on it.
Moon cakes have been used as common marketing tool.
So called 「non-sugar moon cakes」 promotions are fake -- instead of using sugar directly, they just replace sugar with some other raw ingredient that will eventually be converted to sugar.
Moon cake voucher traders: If you have more moon cake tickets than you need, these voucher traders allow you to redeem them, usually for 40-60% of the original price. And you could find these people on the street with a sign saying 「月餅回收票」or on the corners near metro stations. (We've seen them along Nanjing Dong Lu!)
For the weekend's holiday events, click the Chinese link on the left below, or use the City Weekend mobile app (for iPhone & Android).