LAGUNA WOODS — Invited by the blood-orange glow of the season’s first full moon, those of East Asian cultures are celebrating harvest and good fortune for the Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Festival.
Recognized on the 15th day of the eighth month in accordance with the lunar calendar, this year’s Moon Festival took place on Monday, Sept. 24.
“People use this opportunity to express their gratitude to heaven — represented by the moon — for the blessings they have enjoyed over the past year,” Irene Cheng, a member of the Chinese American Club, said of the holiday that originated in China.
The club will be celebrating the Moon Festival as well as their 20-year anniversary on Tuesday, Oct. 2 in Clubhouse Five, among a sold-out crowd of 300.
Moon worship may take form in lighting lanterns, burning incense, performing dragon or lion dances or simply gazing at the moon. Most importantly, however, it’s revered by eating rich, dense hockey-puck-sized biscuits known as mooncake.
“It’s a time to celebrate with family, and friends too, just to gather, have dinner and eat mooncake,” Laguna Woods resident Mabel Tam, 64, said. “Having mooncake is so important to the tradition.”
Tam explained, as turkey is to Thanksgiving for Americans, mooncakes are to Mid-Autumn Festival for Chinese.
Often filled with a thick, lotus-seed, date or red-bean paste, these circular baked goods are served in small wedges and best paired with a tea. Traditional mooncakes are imprinted with Chinese symbols of “longevity,” “good fortune” or “harmony” on top and may contain whole-salted duck eggs — hinting at the full moon — hidden inside.
“The round mooncakes are symbolic of family, unity and closeness,” Cheng added.
This year, Tam bought six boxes of mooncakes, typically containing four biscuits and costing upwards of $40 per box, and gazed at the moon alongside her husband, daughter, son, son-in-law and granddaughter.
Emphasizing the importance of the pastry exchange ritual, she remembered a time when her mother joined a club that allowed her to pay in installments in the months leading up to the late-September, early-October holiday in order to be able to gift mooncakes to her beloved.
“It was really important for her to share it with her family,” Tam said. “It made me happy because it made her happy.”
Countless folklore is tied to the holiday’s origin. Even the two tales in widest in circulation vary in detail.
Mostly conveyed as fact, mooncakes were said to be a part of overthrowing the nearly 100-year rule of the Mongols at the end of the Yuan dynasty in 1368. It is said that Han generals spread messages of revolt inside mooncakes, triggering an overnight rebellion and the beginnings of the Ming dynasty.
The other takes a more whimsical route and references the moon-faced woman, Chang’e, featured on most mooncake packaging.
One day 10 suns arose, decimating the crops and threatening that year’s harvest. An archer named Hou Yi, husband to Chang’e, shot down nine of the suns, leaving just one. His actions earned him an elixir from the gods that would provide the consumer with immortality. He refused to drink it as he did not want to live without his wife. Then one day, while Yi was hunting, one of his power-hungry apprentices broke into their house to drink the elixir, which Chang’e resorted to drinking as to prevent him from gaining invincibility. She floated up to the sky, choosing the nearest celestial body, the moon, as residence. She wanted to stay as close to her husband, who set out her favorite cakes on an altar to worship her, as possible.
There are variations, including one portraying Chang’e’s actions to be self-serving or an act of betrayal. Fortunately, Tam grew up with the love-drunk adaptation.
“There are complex stories of legends which, to my parent’s horror, I never bothered to remember,” said John Gee, 77, president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance Club.
From what he does recall, his family celebrated with rice tamales filled with the red beans, made sweet or savory, and often containing a whole, preserved egg. His aunt, the family cook, wrapped them in banana leaves, then steamed the tamales to serve hot.
As legend has it, a dragon ravaged the countryside, Gee said, threatening the crops.
“The tamales were means of placating the dragon,” he said. “The ingredients used to make them were only available due to the harvest.”
Despite whatever legend one grew up with –– from revolts to great love, or from betrayal to tamale sacrifices –– it’s about wellbeing together.
To convey this, Cheng shared a popular Chinese poem titled “In the Quiet Night:”
So bright a gleam on the foot of my bed.
Could there have been a frost already?
Lifting myself to look, I found that it was moonlight.
Sinking back again, I thought suddenly of home, sweet home.
