Happy Mid-Autumn Festival (or Mooncake Festival or Lantern Festival or whatever you called it) to all my Chinese families, relatives, friends, neighbours, colleagues, or whoever out there reading this and do celebrate it! The festival which falls on the 15th day of the 8th month on Chinese lunar calendar is one of the most important festivals in Chinese tradition. It is even made a public holiday in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. But why not in Malaysia too? Hmmm….we felt sad of not getting a holiday for this major festival.
Anyway, forget about holiday and let’s put our focus on the positive meaning behind this celebration. This Mid-Autumn Festival is meant for whole family to gather together under the bright full moon, and is emphasizing on three fundamental concepts; gathering (family and friends), thanksgiving (give thanks for the harvest or for harmonious unions), and praying (moon worshipping in hope for conceptual or material satisfaction). Let’s make it simple; it’s all about family harmony. So, please do stay with the family today (it’s convenient since it’s Sunday and everybody is not going to work or school) and enjoy dinner and chats with mooncakes tonight. Kids can have fun and play lanterns and candles tonight.
Leave your tablets or smartphones away and indulge in the true meaning behind this wonderful festival. Have a try on delicious mooncakes, a bakery product which is specially made for this celebration. Now, there is a lot of variety to the flavours of mooncakes available for sale from many different brands here in Malaysia (Kam Lun Tai, Tai Thong, Overseas, Baker’s Cottage, etc). I love mooncakes, and since I can only eat them for only a short period of time in a year, I would be willing to buy many of them. Recently, not only I do bought two boxes of mooncakes from Tai Thong that cost me over RM100 (even after discounts) and additional two boxes of jelly mooncakes (another RM64 spent), but I also sometimes bought some mooncakes from a hawker stall that I frequently visited to buy my breakfasts in weekdays.
Mooncakes taste good and I especially like the original ones (lotus paste with yolk). I also enjoyed the snow-skin and the durian-flavoured ones. But buying many of them is very costly now. My wallet hurts. If I’m not buying them, my home would be empty without any mooncakes to taste (all my other family members didn’t really quite like mooncakes), and that would make the festival ’empty’ and ‘meaningless’ to my family. Anyway, I really ate quite a lot of mooncakes this year, since my generous colleagues were offering mooncakes in the office many times recently. I’m not tired of it (just like how I’m not tired of eating my favourite durian…haha).
Anyway, Happy Mid-Autumn Festival once again!
(Images in this post are from various sources throughout the world wide web)
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