The Chinese Moon Festival, or sometimes called the Mid-Autumn Festival, takes place on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month. The festival dates back to the Tang dynasty 618 A.D. and celebrates the biggest and brightest full moon of the year, the harvest moon.
The Moon Festival is a holiday in China. It's an occasion for family reunions. Chinese families like to get together to eat the moon cakes and watch the moon at the Moon Festival night. Just like other Chinese families who wish to commemorate this festival, we spent Sunday playing the dice, partaking of a hearty dinner and just spending time with loved ones.
~~~~~HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO EYA!!!~~~~~
What lovely pictures! I mean wow! Oh, interesting tidbit, my husband, who works for a logistics co, just got a shipment of Chinese mooncake (their Chinese client sends them surplus goods all the time). Well, he said all his co-workers spit their out after taking a bite. I liked it but there is a middle part that I didn't. what is in that middle part?
ReplyDeleteHi Linnor.
ReplyDeleteWow! It's been a long time since I last play with the dice. Though I prefer eating the tikoys on chinese new year rather than the moon cakes.
Did you know that traditionally it was a game where the prizes are the moon cakes? the sizes of the moon cake differs per prize level. so it was less interesting for the kids, that's why they change it to gift items. :-)
HI PINAYHEKMI!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Most moon cakes contain salted egg in the middle. The more expensive ones (about P100 a piece the size of a regular siopao or burger bun)has nuts, dates or edible seeds.
A traditional mooncake is made of a sweet bean-paste filling with golden brown flaky skin. The top of the mooncake is embossed with the insignia of the baker molded into the golden brown skin. It takes 2 to 4 weeks to prepare the bean-paste. Because making mooncakes is labor intensive, many families just buy them from bakeries. (http://www.familyculture.com/holidays/mooncake.htm)
HI JO!
Haha, I love eating the tikoys and the moon cake. Though I'm not Chinese, I've grown to love these delicacies after marrying into a Chinese family.
Yes, Jerry told me it used to be moon cakes as prizes before. Imagine having to win all those big and small moon cakes. That's like a week's supply already!
My eldest son won the top prize. They say it symbolizes luck. And as a tradition, he will buy the prizes for next year's game. :D
yum, i love mooncakes and tikoy! my chinese friends in DLSU used to give me boxes and boxes of mooncakes and tikoys. kaka-miss tuloy :P
ReplyDeleteHI CHRISTINE!
ReplyDeleteSarap no? Mami-miss mo nga. Wala bang Chinatown dyan? :D Hehehe...
haha, si jake, hinain sa lazy susan :)
ReplyDeletecute!
I love mooncake! Happy Moon Festival! :D
ReplyDeleteHI BEA!
ReplyDeleteParang moon kasi ang eyes ni Jake kaya bagay ihain sa Moon fest. Hehehe...
HI TONI!
Thanks! Moon Fest is to Chinese as Thanksgiving is to American. :D
i played this years ago in a chinese client's mooncake festival party. though i didn't understand the rules and history of playing the dice, enjoy pa rin :)
ReplyDeletepero di ako mahilig sa mooncake. hopiang monggo na lang :)
HI JOJO!
ReplyDeleteActually di ko din alam ang rules. Pumipili lang ako ng prize pag nanalo na. Hehehe...
Uy masarap din ang hopiang monggo. Pati hopiang baboy gusto ko din. :)
happy moon festival to you, jerry and the kids! hoping for more prosperity to come!
ReplyDeletelinnor, that's it then! salted egg. I liked the beans but could have skipped the salted eggs. Thanks!
ReplyDeletehi linnor, nakaka-inggit talaga ang kultura ng mga chinese, napaka-steep sa tradition at laging may food involved :) btw, i like mooncakes. meron noon ako natikman na mooncake na masarap, yung nabibili sa may mabini na chinese restaurant... ocean something. yikes, i forgot na. hehe! anyway...
ReplyDeletehappy thanksgiving :D
singapore's got a wide variety of mooncakes, pandan mooncake, mango mooncake, etc. i'll still with the original version though. :)
ReplyDeleteHI PAZ!
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot! :D
HI PINAYHEKMI!
That's the best part---the salted egg! Hahaha. Nag-aagawan kami dyan and sometimes we would cheat each other by cutting the moon cake in quarters and racing against each other in getting the one with the biggest egg yolk in the middle.
My in-laws would feel short-changed if a mooncake doesn't have salted egg yolks in the middle. Kakaiba no?
HI MEEYAGIRL!
I agree, and I love it that my in-laws are so tightly knit. Masaya ang malaki ang pamilya and one way to achieve that is to get close to the in-laws as well. I'm lucky to have found another caring and generous family in them. Di yan sipsip ha. Hehehe.
HI TIN!
I saw the other mooncake flavors too but like you, I prefer the original version without the nuts and seeds. I like it with a lot of salted eggs. Hehehe.
Sorry hindi ako maka relate sa inyong pinag usapan--Mooncakes on Moon Fest Day kasi wala dito sa Canada nyan. Among us CANADIANS ang alam namin is to tour and appreciate the beauty of God's cration here in Canada.
ReplyDeleteTomorrow we will be in Niagara Falls and on our way there we will try apple picking. We will take some fotos for our scrapbook. Has Junnie updated you of out three-day tour of New York and New Jersey? We were guests of your Auntie Nanette and sis Jackie Sering and also Reno Arreza. Ang saya-saya. Wish you were with us!
Sige na nga HAPPY MOON FEST DAY to the Gueros and to Jerry!
Hi, Linnor!
ReplyDeleteYes, mooncakes have been everywhere here in Malaysia (coming out of everyone's ears!!!) They come in different varieties and flavors. They even had the kind they called "snow skin" which needed refrigeration while it was displayed. Imagine, an Italian restaurant also offered Italian mooncakes (is there such a thing?). Haagen Dazs had their ice cream version, too.
Sadly, I haven't seen any tikoy here, which I think I would have preferred to eat.
By the way, my husband never got to go to your store (kainis!). He was in Cebu for a night only and when they passed by the mall(?) in Banilad on the way to the airport, he and my mother-in-law couldn't find it. Haaay! Hopefully I get to go in December!
HI PAPARAZZI!
ReplyDeleteHahaha! Ang yabang nyo na ha. :D You sound like you don't intend to come back to the Philippines after being there in Canada for half a month.
Pero judging from the pics I saw on Junnie's blog, you did enjoy sightseeing and meeting relatives there. Sana kami din, soon.
HI MAYAN!
Yes, ang dami nang variations ng mooncake. How does an ice cream version of Haagen Dazs taste kaya???
Sayang di nakita ni hubs mo yung stall. Sige lang sana makapasyal ka when you come in December. :)
ay, nakaka-miss ang mooncake, at may nagbanggit pa ng tikoy, lalo na! i like it when the mooncake has squash seeds, and the salted egg too.
ReplyDeleteang saya ng family gathering!
...and moon festival is chusok in korean (lunar harvest festival). wala kaming mooncakes dito, but we do have songpyun, which rice ckae filled with beans, sometimes people dip it in honey para tumamis...haay, ano yung game? sorry ha, im not familiar with the chinese custom kasi eh...cute ni jake dun sa lazy susan!
ReplyDeleteI have been craving for moon cake since 2001!!! Unfortunately, since then, I was not able to get my ass back to Manila to get moon cakes! :( Darn chinese shops here do not have moon cakes, either. Poor is me. Ikain mo na lang ako!
ReplyDeleteis that the same as tikoy? love it kasi kaya lang it's not available here :(
ReplyDeleteTo AnP, if you have a chinese community there, definitely you'll see mooncakes and tikoy... pero seasonal food yan, so you'll only be able to see/buy mooncakes during the Mooncake Feast which is around this time of the year... and tikoy between Jan-Feb in time for the chinese new year.
ReplyDeleteHmmm... ng craving tuloy... makapunta na nga ng chinese store!
HI ANP!
ReplyDeleteHahaha! Please refer to Jo's comment...
HI ANALYSE!
Tikoy is made of glutinous rice while moon cake is made of bean paste. Though made of different ingredients, pareho silang masarap. :D
HI JO!
Thanks for the heads up! :)
History has it that the moon cake was actually used as a "weapon of war"...The warriors hid messages, maybe battle plans inside the moon cake which they transported among the troops! Today, the Mid Autumn Festival is one of the many traditions of the Chinese! :)
ReplyDeleteHI JERRY!
ReplyDeleteI read that too in the internet. It's one of the many legends told about the Mid-Autumn Fest... Interesting...