Thursday, September 11, 2008

Mid-Autumn Festival Means Moon Cakes!

Monday is the Mid-Autumn Festival and that means that moon cakes are everywhere. People give them as gifts and they also buy them to eat for themselves. My apartment building brought over a box of moon cakes earlier this week. They came in a beautiful bag. Inside the bag was a box decorated the same as the bag. Inside the larger box, there were four little boxes that looked just like the big box. And inside each little box was a moon cake! When the apartment people first delivered the box, I wasn't completely sure what was going to be inside. I don't think I have ever seen a moon cake before and I definitely haven't ever tasted one. I thought the box was lovely, so I was excited to see what the moon cakes looked like.

I was so excited about the moon cakes that I decided to cut each of them open to see if they were the same or all different. I was guessing that they'd be a little different since the outsides looked different. The first one I cut open was the one with the egg yolk in the middle. I crossed my fingers that there wouldn't be any more of those. It ended up that one was the egg yolk, one was a sweet bean, one was perhaps a date paste, and the last was a white bean paste. None of them smelled very good at all. But, since I am in China and being adventurous, I decided to taste each one. The verdict: I didn't really like any of them. The sweet bean and the date paste ones were more palatable than the other two, but I ended up throwing them all away after taking the smallest of tastes.

Yesterday was Teachers' Day in China and one teacher received a Chanel scarf! I didn't get anything on Teachers' Day, but today I got....you guessed it! More moon cakes! I graciously accepted them and thanked the mom who gave them to me. Again, they came in a lovely bag and this time in a pretty tin. Inside the tin were four smaller boxes this time. I opened one and it somehow looked tastier and it definitely smelled better than the first set of moon cakes. I decided to bravely take a bite without even cutting it in half first. This time, it was really good! It was a sweeter one with some kind of seed mixed in with maybe date again. I didn't cut all these ones open because they all look the same, so hopefully they are all like the first one!

Tomorrow I am going on a China Link excursion to Hou Hai to learn more about the Mid-Autumn Festival and go on a boat ride. We also get Monday off to celebrate this holiday!

Here are a couple more pictures from a dinner and walking around in the Sanlitun area in the evening.




--Sarah--

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Definitely you first need to know which side of the moon (cake) you are on before chomping. One side will make you bigger.....one...smaller.... (Probably the one you do not eat will be the one that makes you smaller.
What a wonderful experience!