Mid-Autumn Festival

Mid-Autumn Festival for 2006 fell on the 6th of October - the 15th day of the 8th month in the Lunar Calendar.

General practices during this festive day include praying to the Moon Goddesss, eating mooncakes & carrying lanterns around. For those non-Chinese who aren't familiar with the stories behind these activities, click here for more info by Wikipedia. For those Chinese who aren't familiar with the stories behind these activities, click there too. SHAME ON YOU!

So now that you know the background of the occasion (hopefully), notice how much it has changed?

The mooncakes...
Check out the variations of mooncakes now available. It has become so commercialized that even Hagen Daaz has dipped its hands into the pot. Ice-cream mooncakes - wth? Well, I can't say they're half bad... but the pricing - MY GOD!

Traditional mooncakes came with fillings such as kernels, jujube (red dates) paste, red bean paste & the most common lotus seed paste. Modern day fillings include ginseng, bird's nest, chocolate, cheese, green tea, pandan, tiramisu, and many more.

Oh, apart from the fillings, the skin/crust too comes in a number of variations these days. It's amazing!

And have you seen those jelly mooncakes? Some brown, some pink, some green, some a rainbow of colours. Some plain jelly, some with filling too. And check this out - konyaku mooncakes... this one takes the cake (pardon the pun)!

Okay enough about mooncakes. Let's talk about the moon itself. The lunar calendar is based on the lunar cycle - duh! So of course on the 15th of the month (Lunar), the moon is at its fullest & brightest. This is when the believers come out to pray to the Moon Goddess, and the others just enjoy the sight. So did you notice how beautiful the moon was this time? I surely did NOT. I could neither see the stars, nor the moon. I couldn't see the clouds, and not even the sky for crying out loud. @$!%#$# haze!

Well, at least there's still the children carrying lanterns around the neighbourhood. Well actually no. Sure their parents buy the beautifully designed lanterns and all. But what seems to be the case now is the focus is no longer on the lantern. Kids these days just want to play with the wax, the wick & the matches/lighter. If you observe, the lanterns just sit in one corner, or hang on the clothes lines while the kids squat in circles around their little wax bonfires.

And I'm surprised to see that their parents/guardians don't seem to have much concern, unlike back in the day where I'd get pinched or yelled at for even thinking of such an act.

When I was below 4ft and still into the idea of running around with lanterns with my childhood friends, showing up with a battery-operated lantern was a huge no-no. You'd just get laughed at and teased all night through.

That doesn't seem to matter any more because battery-operated or not, the lanterns serve no real function except as an excuse to have parents sponsor endless supplies of candles. And who ends up scraping the wax off the tiles the next day? The parents of course (or if they're smart - the maid)! Poor souls...

That sums up today's Mid-Autumn Festival - not quite what it used to be.