China
Mid Autumn Festival - Moon Festival
The Mid-Autumn festival is celebrated during the full moon that falls between the mid-September and mid-October. On this night of the full moon, tradition says that you sit outdoors with your family throughout the night, admiring the moon, talking, and eating special sweet cakes called Moon Cakes. Though not a major festival, it is noteworthy to foreign visitors for two reasons.
Most visible at this time of year are the ubiquitous moon cakes, palm-sized, square or round dense cakes consisting of a thin dough shell filled with a variety of sweet confections. They are delicious, filling, and undoubtedly fattening as well.
Thus, at least a month before the full moon date, moon cakes begin to appear in stores and bakeries. As the full moon approaches, moon cakes sprout everywhere. They are exchanged like Christmas cards, so there are countless highly decorated paper boxes of every size and shape filled with various moon cakes prominently displayed near the check-out counter at every store.
But the real part of Mid-Autumn festival is the gazing at the full moon. This is a night for poets to celebrate its beauty, for families to sit outside in the cooling air of late summer, away from the often-stifling heat of their apartments, for young couples to have an excuse to walk close together for an evening.
There are a number of famous places for Mid-Autumn moon viewing, including one in Hangzhou, on West Lake. This is one of those places reputed to offer the finest viewing circumstances; it is called Three Pools Mirroring the Moon, a classical Chinese descriptive name. It consists of a string of three small towers set into the shallow lake, each of which has five holes that release shafts of light from candles lit on this evening. You would get rowed out on a small flat craft, and sit with your lover quietly watching the moon rise. Ah, how romantic, how lovely. A thousand years ago, if you were a noble person, rich, you might be allowed to join the small band of boats gathered on the waters, and it would indeed have been magical. But that was then, and this is now.
China is a fascinating country and Mid-Autumn festival is a nice reminder of the changing seasons. If you happen to be here in mid-September, do look for the moon cakes; they are delicious in moderation. And if you happen to be in Hangzhou, or any other famous moon-viewing venue, go out and enjoy yourself, mingle with the locals, stroll and take in the evening air, and look at that moon!