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Mooncakes are commonly eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons
Mid-Autumn Festival coming up on Sept. 10
By Harvey Ng
Published 12:53 PDT, Fri September 2, 2022
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The Mid-Autumn Festival is just around the corner, taking place on Sept. 10 this year.
The festival has been celebrated for over 3,000 years and is an important event in Chinese culture. According to the 2016 census, more than half of Richmond’s population is Chinese (53 per cent in 2016).
The Mid-Autumn Festival was formed during the Zhou Dynasty (1050 to 221 BC) where the story of Hou Yi was told. Once upon a time, 10 suns existed, scorching people and crops. To solve this issue, Emperor Yao summoned Hou Yi, who is also known as the Lord Archer, to shoot down and destroy nine of the suns.
After he was successful, Hou Yi was granted the elixir of immortality. While he was still on Earth, he met and fell in love with a woman named Chang’e.
Because of this, Hou Yi went to the Western Queen Mother and requested the Elixir of Life. He was granted the elixir because of the good deeds he had done. Hou Yi and Chang’e planned to drink half each, but an evil man named Feng Meng overheard and wanted the elixir for himself.
One day, Feng Meng confronted Chang’e, but she ended up drinking all of the elixir and floated to the moon on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, giving her the name Moon Goddess. Hou Yi would visit the Garden of Sacrifice and provide her favourite foods.
At first, emperors would worship Chang’e and Hou Yi on the full moon and eat mooncake afterwards. Later on, this practice was passed on to everyone. The event is celebrated by spending time with family and eating traditional foods.
The Mid-Autumn Festival would be considered incomplete without a mooncake because it symbolizes togetherness and reunion with family. There are many variations of mooncake, but the most popular are five-nut, Cantonese-style, Suzhou meat, Beijing Fanmao, Yunnan ham, Hunan-style, seafood, and snow skin.
Mooncakes also have an interesting history that involves the Chinese and the Mongolians between 1280 and 1368 AD that was said to have caused a revolution. During this time, there were conflicts between two nations, with the Mongolians trying to invade China.
On the 13th attempt, the Mongolians succeeded. To combat this issue, the emperor of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang, sent thousands of mooncakes as gifts to friends in the Mongolian capital. The legend says these mooncakes contained a secret message to rebel against the Mongolians on the eve of the festival. This tactic was successful and the Mongolian government was defeated, which marked the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
In Richmond, many Asian shops and supermarkets including T&T and Foody World celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival with decorations such as bright red lanterns and traditional Chinese scriptures.
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