Happy Days Are Here Again!

Yes, the mid-autumn festival is here again. The shops are overflowing with lovely mooncakes and biscuits and also colourful lanterns.

When I was a small girl, I looked forward to this time of year, not because I liked mooncakes but because I loved to play with the lanterns. Made in colourful polythene foil, they came in the shape of animals, dragons and goldfish. As I recall, my favourite lantern was a goldfish which I would keep and preserve well after the festival was over. In recent years, the lantern makers have added rockets, spaceships, sporty cars and such like to keep up with the times..

I used to light my lantern and carry it around the garden in the evening together with my sisters and cousins. On the 15th day of the 8th month of the Chinese lunar calendar, which is the "official" day for worship, my mother would set up a little altar in a position facing the moon. She would place on it such offerings as mooncakes, pomeloes, kueh, baby yams and other sweetmeats used for prayer. After dinner, everyone would then pray to the moon , which is a must for single girls. I believe this is to ensure that they get a good husband! It was also believed that if one eats the baby yams while gazing at the moon, one will become beautiful like the moon!

Everyone is familiar with the legend associated with the moon festival. There is also another legend about "the man in the moon". In those days, we also had fun trying to see whether we could spot him on the moon. According to the legend, on this day "the man in the moon" was spotted at an inn, carrying a writing tablet. When questioned, he said he was recording the names of all the happy couples who were fated to marry and live happily forever after. Some of us had good imagination and could see him beneath a tree on the moon; as for me I have not been able to see him up till now! In these modern times, many families have given up the tradition of praying to the moon but some old fashioned families still observe it, one being ours! My mother finds it extremely difficult to give up age old traditions and so we keep on praying!

Mooncakes are really too sweet for me and I can only eat them a little at a time, so I keep them in the fridge to nibble whenever I feel like it. People are surprised when I tell them I still have mooncakes to eat at the end of the year! I love the intricate designs on top of them and also the colourful boxes they come in. Nowadays, probably due to escalating costs, tin boxes are not much in use. I have in the past collected a few and used them as sewing boxes.

Apart from the traditional flavours, mooncakes now come in new flavours such as green tea, pandan, red dates, durian, honey dew and lemon. They also make mini mooncakes now, probably for the children's market. I like those with egg yolks and needless to say, they are more expensive! Prices range from RM8 to RM12 depending on the flavour you choose. Recently I read in the papers that 25 Made-in-Penang giant mooncakes, each weighing 8 kg. have been sent to customers in Indonesia! I wonder how long it would take to eat a mooncake of that size!

Happy "zhong qiu jie"!