Sunday, September 11, 2011

Mid-Autumn Festival

Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival, according to the Lunar Calendar. Like a lot of other festivals there are "romantic" tales involved. So I' will try my best to explain this Mid-Autumn tale.
In ancient China, there used to be nine suns in the sky. The sun we see has eight brothers. People are burned and dried by the extreme heat. It's hell during the daytime. There's a legendary bow and eight legendary arrows on a mountain. But nobody can pull that bow. A gifted man Hou-yi went there and made it. He used them to shoot down the other eight suns. People started to live happy forever. The God, father of nine suns, punished him and sent him a bag of poison drugs. Hou-yi's wife Chang-e secretly took those drugs for her husband. She flew up to the moon and live there forever. People thanked the couple by making this festival. All families get together to celebrate it and have mooncakes this day.
That's basically where Mid-Autumn Festival comes from. I hope I can get some decent mooncakes somewhere.

No comments:

Post a Comment