Mid Autumn Festival

The Mid Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, or in Chinese, 中秋節 (Zhongqiu Jie), is a popular harvest festival celebrated by Chinese and other people in the world (even though they celebrate it differently), dating back over 3,000 years to moon worship in China's Shang Dynasty. It was first called 中秋節 (Zhongqiu Jie), which literally means Mid-Autumn Festival in the Zhou Dynasty. In Malaysia, Singapore and Philipines, it is also sometimes referred to as the Lantern Festival or Mooncake Festival.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar (lunar calender), which is usually around late September or early October in the Gregorian calendar. It is a date that parallels the autumn and spring Equinoxes of the solar calendar, when the moon is supposedly at its fullest and roundest. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are many different varieties.

Traditionally, on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomelos together. Accompanying the celebration, there are additional cultural or regional customs, such as eating mooncake outside under the moon, carrying brightly lit lanterns, etc.

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This year Mid Autumn Festival as usual, I guess I will be celebrating at home with my family where we gather for a dinner only. Those mooncake eating and playing with candles and lantern are not really my thing. So most probably after 9pm, I'll be darn bored.

Today is Mid Autumn Festival Eve, which is also my mother's birthday according to the Chinese lunar calendar (not the Gregorian calendar which my mother falls on 7th of October). This evening my family will be going out for dinner at some vegetarian restaurant nearby my area.