The Mid-Autumn Festival

Zhong Qiu Jie will be here comes this Sunday. It is also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival which falls on the 15th day of the eighth moon every year according to the lunar calendar. The Chinese will celebrate this festival without fail.

The arrival of this festival can be felt when you seen yue pian being sold in the market. These mooncakes have some stories behind them. According to one, secret messages were put inside the cakes to tell the masses to revolt against the Mongols during the 14th Century and drive them from China. People who cut the cakes would find messages to this effect and acted accordingly.

Another thing associated with this festival is the bearing of lanterns. For children, they always look forward to this day as they can carry their favourite lanterns around with their friends. In the past, candles were lighted inside the lantern to provide light for the kids to walk around at night. Nowadays bulbs powered by batteries replaced the candles as illuminators. For this year, there are even lion dance lanterns powered by batteries with songs played sold in the market. Each lantern costs around RM10.00.

As for adults, they will be sitting outside the house to admire the beauty of the full moon. Some Chinese do pray to the moon too.