中秋節 Mid-Autumn Festival
The middle of the fall season, the weather is cool, neither cold nor hot, the perfect time for moon viewing.
On August 15 of the lunar calendar with a full moon at night, this year the day will be September 29, 2023.
It is said the Moon is the brightest and roundest on this day which means family reunion.
What special food will we eat to celebrate this festival?
月餅 Mooncakes
A rich pastry typically filled with sweet bean, egg yolk, meat, or lotus seed paste, is traditionally eaten during this festival. In fact, there was a custom of eating cakes during festivals in Chinese culture, but the earliest record of the word 月餅 mooncake appeared in the 明朝(Ming Dynasty).
There is a folk tale about 朱元璋, the founding king of the Ming Dynasty, and his counselor劉伯溫
The story said that 劉伯溫 made a plan to spread rumors of the plague in order to contact the scattered resistance forces in various places.
The most important in this plan is eating mooncakes can avoid catching the epidemic, so everyone buys them and take them as gifts to family and friends. Now, no one is going to question why someone would get Mooncakes, since everyone eats them, so you can hide a note inside and give it to the people you want to contact.
The note says, 「八月十五夜起義」Revolt on the night of August 15.
Because of the mooncake and the note, they succeeded in revolution. After that, they eat mooncakes on that day to commemorate it.
烤肉 Barbecue
It's all because of 烤肉架barbecue grill and 烤肉醬 barbecue sauce.
1982, There was a company that made barbecue grills and wanted to sell them overseas, but it didn't go well, so the products were sold domestically at a reduced price. The slogan was Mid-Autumn Barbecue.
A few years later, the 萬家香 company launched a new barbecue sauce. The slogan was 「一家烤肉萬家香」
What means 一家烤肉萬家香？ The three words 萬家香 are not just a company's name but have other meaning
一 and萬 are numbers, 家 in here means family, 香 means aroma, so this slogan means: There is one family that uses our barbecue sauce, thousands of nearby households could smell the aroma and envy their happiness.
Then it goes viral, everyone wants to try that special sauce.
After that, the Taiwanese are used to having barbecues during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Sweet mooncakes, sizzling barbecue, and juicy pomelo will be perfected this evening.
柚子pomelo
We eat pomelo during the Mid-Autumn Festival just because it is a seasonal fruit. And pomelo is good for digestion after you eat sweet and sizzling things you will need it, plus, it's delicious.
Now, stomachs full, it's time to enjoy the moon and the story on the moon.
嫦娥奔月
Once upon a time, there were ten suns in the sky, making the weather scorching hot, scorching the earth.
There is no rain, so there is no water to drink and no plants to grow. People are suffering.
后羿(Hou-yi) was angry about those suns, so he took his bow and arrows to shoot down the nine suns. He left only one in the sky, because, without the sun, people could't survive.
God gave him a wife as a reward. The beautiful woman named 嫦娥(Chang-e).
Although 嫦娥 was following God's order, she didn't want to leave heaven, and she was upset all day. 后羿 was worried about her, so he prayed to God for help. God gives them the elixir that can make them fly to heaven.
后羿 tells 嫦娥 that he has to say goodbye to some people, and when he returns, they can eat the elixir and go to heaven together. But 嫦娥 doesn't want to wait. After 后羿 leaves, she takes the elixir immediately. This elixir is for two doses, but 嫦娥 takes them all. The elixir is too strong, 嫦娥 flies into the sky and can't return to earth.
后羿 comes home and sees 嫦娥 floating in the air, he tries to grab her, but it doesn't work, he just watches her fly into the sky with tears in his eyes.
嫦娥 feels shame. She broke a promise and did not have the courage to return to heaven to face other goddesses. She flew to the moon and lived there alone, regretting what she had done.
玉兔搗藥
In folklore, the rabbit volunteers for a company with 嫦娥 because the rabbit pities her for living alone on the moon; the moon rabbit's daily work is pounding the elixir.
吳剛伐桂
A man named 吳剛(Wu Gang), no matter what his teacher told him to do, he always gave up easily. This finally made his teacher angry and sent him to the moon, The teacher told him to cut down the osmanthus tree桂花樹. He couldn't return to earth until he had finished the task. But the osmanthus tree on the moon can heal itself, so 吳剛 was forced to cut the tree down endlessly.
His teacher must hate him, I think.