Moon Festival

This year's moon festival begins on Sunday September 18th.

On the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, the moon is round and the Chinese people mark their Moon (or Mid-autumn) Festival. The round shape to Chinese means family reunion. Therefore the Moon Festival is a holiday for members of a family to get together wherever it is possible. On that day sons and daughters will bring their family members back to their parents' house for a reunion. On the Moon Festival, people eat moon cakes, a kind of cookie with fillings of sugar, fat, sesame, walnut, the yoke of preserved eggs, ham or other material. In Chinese fairy tales, there live on the moon the fairy Chang E, a wood cutter named Wu Gang and a jade rabbit which is Chang E's pet.

The Yo-Mei Mountain Moon
by Li Bai
The autumn moon is half round above the Yo-mei Mountain;
The pale light falls in and flows with the water of the Ping-chiang River.
Tonight I leave Ching-chi of limpid stream for the three Canyons.
And glide down past Yu-chow, thinking of you whom I can not see.

I will be thinking of my daughter Sunday night.