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--