Moon festival or mid-autumn festival
Last week was mid-autumn festival in China. It is also known as moon festival and always takes place on the 15th day of the 8th month in China’s traditional calendar that is based on moon cycles. This is around mid-September to early October in the Gregorian calendar and always falls on the day of a full moon.
The traditional story behind the moon festival revolves around Chang’e, the goddess of the moon. She was the wife of Hou Yi, the legendary archer in Chinese mythology. According to the legend, Hou Yi lived at a time when ten suns were burning down from the sky. It was unbearably hot on earth and the emperor tasked Hou Yi to shoot down nine of the ten suns to make life on earth possible again.
Following this heroic act, Hou Yi one day received an elixir of immortality. However, this elixir was only sufficient for one person and according to the legend, Hou Yi did not want to be separated from his wife. There are different versions of the story on what happened afterwards, but they all share that Chang’e rather than Hou Yi ended up drinking the elixir of immortality. Following this, she flew to the moon where she still resides as the goddess of the moon.
Mid-autumn festival in China is up to the present day one of the more important traditional festivals. People gather with friends and family to celebrate and eat mooncakes. Mooncakes exist in different sizes from cookie-size to the size of a rather large cake. They are filled with different ingredients, e.g. red bean paste or lotus seed paste, and they can be either sweet or savoury. Mooncakes are also a popular gift to friends, family and business partners alike.
Mooncake
Chang’e also occupies an important position in China’s lunar exploration program. All spacecrafts and moon landing vehicles that China has sent to the moon since its first mission in 2007 are named after her.