A Chinese friend told me the story behind the Mid-Autumn Festival, below I paraphrased what she told me.
The picture on the left is of the moon on Sept. 30th. The window in our apt made a double moon. The picture on the right is a moon-cake. It is a sweet pastry with red bean paste inside.
A long time ago there were ten suns in the sky which made it very hot on the earth. It never rained and people lived a terrible life. Then one day a hero named HouYi shot the nine suns down so that only one sun was left. This explains the existence of our one sun today.
To praise HouYi an angel gave him a pill which could make him young forever. HouYi had a beautiful wife ChangeE so he refused to take it because he wanted to grow old with her. He hid the pill in their home without telling her. One day when HouYi was out his wife found the pill while she was cleaning. ChangeE was surprised because she didn’t know what it was but she still ate it. A miracle happened once ChangeE took it and she went up into the sky. While ChangeE was rising HouYi came home. He was heartbroken because ChangeE was crying and she didn’t know why this was happening. There was no way to reverse ChangeE coming back down to the earth.
ChangeE was good at making moon cakes so she would throw them to HouYi to show that she loved him. The reason the Chinese celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival is because it symbolizes people’s hope to reunion their families. This year the holiday was on September 30th. The Chinese celebrate by gathering together with their family in the evening with a feast and later a moon-cake while watching the moon.
Have you heard of this version of the Mid-Autumn Festival? Do you know something else about this holiday?
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