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Asia Moon Festival
11 Sep, 2003
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Please note our office will be closed until Monday for our annual Moon Festival. We will do our best to ship current orders and also process new orders.
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Old folk in China call this day the feast of the harvest Moon, or the mid-Autumn Festival. It is more popularly known as the Moon Festival. To the ancients, it was the season of gathering, of harvest, of celebration, where people enjoyed the fruits of their labor. It was also a day of worship. People in villages set up altars in their courtyards, offering sweet cakes and fruits to the moon goddess.
Chinese communities all over the world celebrate the Moon Festival. Chinatowns become vibrant with red-orange lanterns and gay streamers. Masked lions, adorned with silver skin and gold beads, dance on the streets on the rhythmic accompaniment of drums, bringing merriment and excitement to the occasion. In the evening, family members gather around during dinner tables to partake of delicious dishes and fruits. The favorite dish is the mooncake, a pastry filled with red-bean paste or lotus root paste, crushed walnut, sunflower seeds, and yoke of preserved egg. This special dessert is shaped round, like a moon.
The moon-lit night signifies reunion and togetherness. People sit in their yard or stand on the balcony to look at the moon and behold the brightness of heavens. In the ancient days in China, people also drank wine and recited words of poetry. The fullness of the moon seems to evoke memories of home, family and friends, as if its beauty and light calls for the wandering heart to return to its dwelling.
The most famous of the Tang poets, Li Bai, contemplated the mysticism of the moon and wrote poems about it. In a poem entitled “Thinking in the Quiet Night,’’ he mused:
In front of my bed, the bright moon ray shines.
It seems like frost on the ground.
I raise my head and look at the moon;
My head bows, I remember my old home.
These rituals and ceremonies that people keep and practice through the ages are their way of expressing love for home and remembrance of family and friends.
As we celebrate the Moon Festival in the year of the Ram, a season supposedly characterized by gentleness and tranquility, let us remember those we love and share with them the beauty of the moon.
Happy Moon Festival!
(words with thanks to Manila Bulletin)
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