More about Mid-Autumn Festival

春江潮水连海平，

海上明月共潮生，

花好月圆人团聚，

祝福声声伴你行

Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节), or Moon Festival, and also commonly known by people nowadays as Mooncake Festival is a popular harvest festival celebrated by Chinese and Vietnamese people, dating back over 3,000 years to moon worship in China's Shang Dynasty (618-907).

It is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which is usually around late September or early October in the Gregorian calendar. It is a date that parallels the autumnal equinox of the solar calendar, when the moon is supposedly at its fullest and roundest. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are many different varieties.

Mooncake

Mooncakes are traditionally eaten during Mid-Autumn Festival, for lunar worship and moon-watching.

It is regarded as an indispensable delicacy on this occasion and often offered to family and friends whom are celebrating this occasion together. 

Typical mooncakes are round or rectangular pastries, measuring about 10 cm in diameter and 4-5 cm thick. A thick filling usually made from lotus seed paste is surrounded by a relatively thin (2-3 mm) crust and may contain yolks from salted duck eggs. Mooncakes are usually eaten in small wedges accompanied by Chinese tea.

Mooncakes consist of a thin tender skin enveloping a sweet, dense filling. The mooncake may contain one or more whole salted egg yolks in its centre to symbolise the full moon. Very rarely, mooncakes are also served steamed or fried.

Traditional mooncakes have an imprint on top consisting of the Chinese characters for "longevity" or "harmony" as well as the name of the bakery and the filling in the moon cake. Imprints of the moon, the Chang'e woman on the moon, flowers, vines, or a rabbit (symbol of the moon) may surround the characters for additional decoration

A legend goes that mooncakes were first made in the 14th Century, when people exchanged pancakes that were stuck with slips of paper reading "Kill the Mongols on the 15th day of the eighth month". It was said to be a secret message from rebel leader Zhu Yuanzhang calling on the Chinese to overthrow the Mongolian rulers of the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368). Conceived by Zhu Yuanzhang (朱元璋) and his advisor Liu Bowen (劉伯溫), who circulated a rumor that a deadly plague was spreading and the only way to prevent it was to eat special mooncakes. This prompted the quick distribution of mooncakes, which were used to hide a secret message coordinating the Han Chinese revolt on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month.

Another method of hiding the message was printed in the surface of mooncakes as a simple puzzle or mosaic. In order to read the encrypted message, each of the four mooncakes packaged together must be cut into four parts each. The 16 pieces of mooncake, must then be pieced together in such a fashion that the secret messages can be read. The pieces of mooncake are then eaten to destroy the message

Stories of Hou Yi and Chang'e

It is said that long ago there used to be 10 suns in the sky. Each day, one of the suns would travel around the sky on a carriage driven by Xihe, the mother of the suns. One day, unexpectedly, all 10 suns simultaneously appeared in the sky, which instantly dried the crops and caused disaster to the people on earth. 

Hou Yi, a local archer, had great sympathy for people's sufferings from the blistering weather and decided to help them out. Houyi climbed up to the summit of Kunlun Mountains and shot down the suns leaving only one to benefit people. After he shot down the sun, Hou Yi became a hero who was revered by local people.

Later, Hou Yi married a beautiful girl—Chang'e. The young couple lived a happy and sweet life. 

Hou Yi was so famous for his perfect archery skills that he had a lot of apprentices, including the unrighteous Peng Meng. One day when Hou Yi was on the way to visit his friend, the Queen Mother of the West gave him an elixir of immortality as a reward for his heroic undertaking. Meanwhile, he warned Hou Yi "Do not swallow this pill before preparing yourself with prayer and fasting for a year". Hou Yi gave the elixir to Chang'e for safekeeping and she took it as a treasure and hid it in her jewelry box. Unfortunately, Peng Meng found this secret and made a plan to steal it. Several days later, when Hou Yi and other apprentices went out for hunting, Peng pretended to fall ill and stayed at home. After they left, Peng forced Chang'e to give him the elixir. Chang'e, knowing that she could not defeat Peng, swallowed the elixir herself, and mmediately she felt herself floating up and flied to the sky. With deep love to her husband, Chang'e chose to be an immortal on the moon, closest to the earth; then she could see her husband every day. 

In late afternoon, Hou Yi came back and was told what had happened. Heart-stricken, Hou Yi went to the back garden and called his wife's name ceaselessly. Surprisingly, he found that the moon was extremely 

clean and bright that night; and that there was a moving figure like Chang'e in the moon. Hou Yi desperately tried to catch up with the moon, but he could not do it. Hou Yi then asked servants to set a table in his back garden and with his wife's favorite snacks and fruits on it. In a short time, more and more people heard about the news that Chang'e had become an immortal, and they also put tables under the moon to pray to Chang'e for good fortune and safety. From then on, the custom of worshipping the moon on the Mid-Autumn Festival began to spread in China. 

According to legend, Chang'e and her husband Houyi were immortals living in heaven. One day, the ten sons of the Jade Emperor transformed into ten suns, causing the earth to scorch. Having failed to order his sons to stop ruining the earth, the Jade Emperor summoned Houyi for help. Houyi, using his legendary archery skills, shot down nine of the sons, but spared one son to be the sun. The Jade Emperor was obviously not pleased with Houyi's solution to save the earth: nine of his sons were dead. As punishment, the Jade Emperor banished Houyi and Chang'e to live as mere mortals on earth.

Seeing that Chang'e felt extremely miserable over her loss of immortality, Houyi decided to journey on a long, perilous quest to find the pill of immortality so that the couple could be immortals again. At the end of his quest he met the Queen Mother of the West who agreed to give him the pill, but warned him that each person would only need half the pill to become immortal.

Houyi brought the pill home and stored it in a case. He warned Chang'e not to open the case and then left home for a while. Like Pandora in Greek mythology, Chang'e became too curious: she opened up the case and found the pill just as Houyi was returning home. Nervous that Houyi would catch her discovering the contents of the case, she accidentally swallowed the entire pill. She started to float into the sky because of the overdose. Although Houyi wanted to shoot her in order to prevent her from floating further, he could not bear to aim the arrow at her. Chang'e kept on floating until she landed on the moon.

While she became lonely on the moon without her husband, she did have company. A jade rabbit, who manufactured elixirs, also lived on the moon. The mythologies of Japan and Korea also feature references about rabbits living on the moon.

Another companion is the woodcutter Wu Gang. The woodcutter offended the gods in his attempt to achieve immortality and was therefore banished on the moon. Wu Gang was allowed to leave the moon if he could cut down a tree that grew there. The problem was that each time he chopped the tree, the tree would instantly grow back, effectively condemning him to live on the moon for eternity.

Chang'e was a beautiful young girl working in the Jade Emperor's palace in heaven, where immortals, good people and fairies lived. One day, she accidentally broke a precious porcelain jar. Angered, the Jade Emperor banished her to live on earth, where ordinary people lived. She could return to the Heaven, if she contributed a valuable service on earth.

Chang'e was transformed into a member of a rich farming family. When she was 18, a young hunter named Houyi from another village spotted her, now a beautiful young woman. They became friends.

One day, a strange phenomenon occurred—10 suns arose in the sky instead of one, blazing the earth. Houyi, an expert archer, stepped forward to try to save the earth. He successfully shot down nine of the suns, becoming an instant hero. He eventually became king and married Chang'e.

But Houyi grew to become greedy and selfish. He sought immortality by ordering an elixir be created to prolong his life. The elixir in the form of a single pill was almost ready when Chang'e came upon it. She either accidentally or purposely swallowed the pill. This angered King Houyi, who went after his wife. Trying to flee, she jumped out the window of a chamber at the top of palace—and, instead of falling, she floated into the sky toward the moon. King Houyi tried unsuccessfully to shoot her down with arrows.

In contrast to the first version, her companion, a rabbit, does not create elixir of life. Aside from the rabbit, the moon is also inhabited by a woodcutter who tries to cut down the cassia tree, giver of life. But as fast as he cuts into the tree, it heals itself, and he never makes any progress. The Chinese use this image of the cassia tree to explain mortal life on earth—the limbs are constantly being cut away by death, but new buds continually appear.

Meanwhile, King Houyi ascended to the sun and built a palace. So Chang'e and Houyi came to represent the yin and yang, the moon and the sun.