中秋節快樂 | Happy Mid-Autumn / Moon Festival

Ahh, it’s that time of the year again, where millions of people gather with family, and watch the moonlight, digesting moon-cakes and grapefruits (Citrus grandis, to be exact), and telling age-old stories.

I was mighty surprised today however, when only one of my friends who celebrated Mid-Autumn / Moon festival knew the history and stories behind the four thousand years old holiday. “Happy Mid-Autumn / Moon festival!” they would say, “Enjoy those moon-cakes!” But seriously, does anyone know why we gather on this day to view the moon? What about the other activities besides staring at the moon and stuffing your face with moon-cake?

Ever since the beginning of time, humans have always fascinated over the celestial object known as “The Moon”. Almost every culture on Earth have some sort of myth or stories that describes how the moon came to being, the God or Goddess that governed the moon, as well as mystical and spiritual power of the moon in relation to almost everything we do – from the survival of crops, to fertility to life and death. In the contemporary world, the moon, besides science, still plays an important part in popular culture – numerous movies, T.V. shows and music pieces use the moon as symbols of magical figures, omens, and love, more on that later.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the three major holidays in the Chinese culture. This means the festival requires family to get together and celebrate the summer’s harvest, but more importantly, the togetherness of the family. For the mentioned reasons, the Mid-Autumn festival can be also addressed in many different ways. The most popular one would simply be Moon Festival (月節). Other names include Gathering Day (團圓節), August Festival (八月節), or Straight Festival (端正節). While most of them are pretty self explanatory, the last name – Straight Festival, referrers to the shape of the moon, as people believe that the full moon on August 15th of the lunar calendar is particularly symmetric and round.

Tradition has it, that the Moon Goddess is the protector of children, and so it is only fitting to worship the Moon Goddess during the Moon Festival! All the food used in the worship must be circular in shape. After the worship, the food are to be eaten by the family with relation to their respective age and size, this symbolizes the togetherness of the family. The Mid-Autumn Festival is also an important time to worship the Earth God, in order to plea for the continuation (or betterment) of crop harvest and to shun away evil from the house-hold premise.

Legends however, are much more fun. The stories include the Moon rabbit, the Moon princess, and a wood cutter by the name of Gang Wu (吳剛), the middle being the most famous. The legend begins a long, long time ago, there was a fairy name Chang-O (嫦娥). One day Chang-O accidentally broke a precious porcelain jar, and was banished to the world of the mortals. At the time, the world had ten suns in the sky. Talk about global warming! The high temperature of course wreck havoc amongst the people. A great worrier at the time name Houyi (后羿) decided to put an end to the people’s suffering, and ended up shooting down nine suns with arrows. The people were grateful, and named Houyi their emperor. Houyi fell in love with Chang-O, and they decided to get married. Unfortunately Houyi decided to take advantage of the people, and was ruthless in his ruling, causing the people to once again sink into deep suffering.

Fearing death, Houyi decided to seek out the Queen Mother of the West, whom gifted Houyi with the elixir for eternal life. Chang-O, fearing that the people would have to forever suffer the wrath of Houyi, decided to take the pill herself, which lead her to float all the way up to the moon, to which now she reside. Houyi on the other hand, ended up going to the Sun, to which now Chang-O and Houyi becomes a symbol for the yin and yang, the moon and sun.

The story of the moon rabbit began at a time of turmoil, when war was rampant. The rabbit, along with his friend Fox and Monkey, found an old man dying of hunger and sickness. To revive him, the animals decided to go and look for food, with no avail. To help the old man and his friends to rid of hunger, the rabbit decided to cook himself. This motivation touched the hearts of the Gods, and they put the rabbit’s soul on the moon to live with Chang-O, to remind everyone to show love and virtue towards others.

As for the story of Gang Wu, the Gods banished him to the moon for trying to achieve immortality. Gang Wu was then order to cut down a Cassie tree. The tree however, was self healing; Gang Wu was unable to damage the tree, effectively banishing him to the moon, forever.

What about them pop songs? The seduction of the moon has inspired many poems throughout the Chinese history. One of them even turned into a pop song! The persona in the poem lament on the fact that he/she is far away from home, and wonders what day it is on the moon, for the moonlight creates both a romantic and cruel settings, for it beams so beautifully despite the persona having a broken heart. The poem ends on a happy note, wishing that everyone can be happy and prosperous, and that despite being far away from others, they’re all viewing the same moon.

Anyways, enough of me rambling, enjoy the beautiful rendition by Theresa Tang.

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明月幾 時有 把酒問 青天
不知天上宮闕 今夕是何年

我欲乘風歸去 唯恐瓊樓玉宇
高處不勝寒 起舞弄清影 何似在人間

轉朱閣 低綺戶 照 無眠
不應有恨 何事長向 別時圓

人有悲歡離合 月有陰晴圓缺
此事古難全 但願人長久 千里共嬋娟