By Prof Yang Ganfu
MOONCAKE, simplified Chinese (yuè bĭng), is a Chinese bakery product traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival (Zhongqiu). The yearly Chinese festival is for lunar worship and moon watching, when moon cakes are regarded as an indispensable delicacy. It is a festival celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, when the moon is said to be at its biggest, brightest and closest to the earth. This year it was on 19 September. Held in close conjunction with the Lantern Festival, the Mooncake Festival has come to be associated with bright and colorful lanterns. There are quite a number of mooncake styles both in China and in other Asian countries such as Japan, Vietnam, Thailand and Philippines where Chinese cultures are rooted deeply. In China alone, we have mooncakes of Beijing style, Chaoshan style, Ningbo style, Yuanan style, Suzhou style, Cantonese style, and Taiwan style. Mooncakes are offered between friends or during family gatherings while celebrating the festival. The Mid-Autumn Festival or the Mooncake Festival is now the second largest Chinese festival after the Chinese New Year, and like the New Year, it has been heavily commercialized.
In Chinese cities or Chinatowns throughout the world, thousands of candlelit lanterns line sidewalks and waterfronts during the double festival. Anxious children on moonlit sidewalks stroll and watch as their minders help them to light their lanterns suspended on the end of a stick. Other excited children run around, faces aglow, gently waving plastic lanterns in the shapes of goldfish, rabbits, butterflies, stars, airplanes and ships. In places like Hong Kong, mainland China or any other regions with large Chinese populations, families gather in open spaces and scenic mountain spots to enjoy a view of the season’s auspicious full moon. You might also notice some old Chinese ladies cautioning their young never to point at the moon too, for it would be “disrespectful to the Lady of the Moon.” Young hopefuls wandering alone, try hard to spot the Old Man of the Moon, to ask that he grant them their wish for true love. In every Chinese home, a rich brown round ‘cake’ – more like a pie of sorts – is cut and served. In Chinese philosophy round shapes symbolize return, a full circle. Round shape also implies success, auspiciousness and achievements as indicated from many Chinese expressions of “yuan yuan man man”, “jia ting yuan yuan”, “yuan man wancheng”, among others. A fundamental canon of Taoism is perfect harmony achieved through the union of man’s spirit with nature. “Harmony” guides, as a principle, not only individual Chinese daily activities in business, life and personal encounters, it also plays a pivotal role in institutional activities and in China’s foreign policy making as well. This explains why China always maintains and welcomes conflict resolutions via peaceful means and condemns the military interventions of another culture or use of war to resolve conflicts as we witness with the current situation in Syria.
The traditional round shapes of mooncakes and older round paper lanterns have come to symbolize an occasion for family reunion to the Chinese, which bears more social, cultural and even political meanings in China. Chinese family reunions are strongly linked to national cohesion and unity. No culture places more weight on family reunions than the Chinese do. Like thanksgiving in Western culture, the Mooncake Festival lies in the harvest festivals normally in autumn, especially after a plentiful harvest. The Mooncake Festival however, has a more significantly patriotic undertone to it. In the ways of the Chinese, a simple symbol encapsulates a universe of deep meanings, tales of romance, immortality, regeneration and hope; a history lesson complete with reminders to diligently guard the independence and integrity of the Chinese people.