Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival (Moon Festival)

Hello everyone! First of all, Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! I hope you are with your family or at least you’ve contacted your family and sent them best wishes!

Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional festival in east Asia and is originated from China. It’s the 15th of August according to lunar calendar every year. According to lunar calendar, August is the second month in Autumn, that’s why it is called Mid-Autumn Festival. On this day, there is full moon, which represents that all the family are together. This is one of the four most important festivals in China and is also celebrated in Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand etc.

There is different tradition in different regions of China. However, the most common one is the whole family get together, sitting around a round table and enjoy either lunch or dinner together. Afterwards, all the family members go out, walking under the moonlight, appreciating the moon and have mooncakes together. Anyway, the core of this festival is for families to get together and celebrate harmony.

Now I’d like to introduce to you the most famous and most traditional desert – Mooncake!

First of all, many thanks to my friend Jing, for bringing me back this box of mooncakes from “Xinghualou”.

For me, this is the most famous company that makes traditional mooncakes (There are also some other brands in Suzhou but I like this one the most). The company was established in 1851, Qing Dynasty in Shanghai. In 1928, it introduced Guangdong style mooncakes for the first time and the the best ingredients were chosen from all over China.

Mooncakes can be with different fillings. For example, mashed red beans with rose, mashed lotus seeds (my favorite), mashed coconuts, papaya, mashed green beans, olives, five nuts (peanut, sesame, walnut, almond and flower seeds) etc. For Xinghualou, it chooses red beans from Haimen, lotus seeds from Hunan,  coconut from Hainan, olive from Guangdong, almond from Zhejiang, walnut from Yunnan etc. The recipe for making these mooncakes is now kept in a safe in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.

The package is also special. In 1983, the company asked a famous Chinese painter Mubai Li to paint a picture according to the ancient Chinese legend “Chang’e”, and they use that picture on the package till nowadays.

After reading this post, I hope you are more interested in Chinese culture and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me. Again, Happy Moon Festival and Have a pleasant time with your family. 🙂