Lunar Calender Holidays

It is the most celebrated holidays in China and some other East and Southern Asian Countries. It is the first day of every lunar year.

The moon on this day is the fullest and largest to the eye. Viewing it by the whole family while feasting on good wine, fruits and moon-cakes features the night event. There is also a beautiful story behind it. Children are told that there's fairy on the moon living in a spacious but cold crystal palace with her sole companion, a jade rabbit. A heavenly general and friend would occasionally pay her a visit, bringing along his fragrant wine. She would then dance a beautiful dance. The shadows on the moon made the story all the more credible and fascinating to the young imaginative minds.

The Moon Festival is often compared to a sort of “Chinese Thanksgiving” because of its spirit of gratitude and its inclusion of abundant food — including the popular moon cake.

Mooncakes
The ubiquitous fare at any Chinese celebration of the Full Moon festival, mooncakes are a flaked pastry stuffed with a wide variety of fillings. Egg Yolk, lotus seed paste, red bean paste, and coconut are common, but walnuts, dates, and other fillings can be found as well. Most have characters for longevity or harmony inscribed on the top. Special cakes can reach almost one foot in diameter.
a box of moon cakes

Poets
Moon is one of the favoratest subjects in chinese poets. There is on great poet made by Su Shi one thousand years ago, which is a gem in chinese langauge and admired by everyone with understanding of chinese culture. It can touch your sole so deeply when you singing the poet in the specail mid-autumn night.

Basically, it says we share the moon and the beatuiful mid-autumn night with our familiy and loved together. Although things are changing in the world, we should treasure our love. Below is the english translation, however, it's just a language translation and it loses most of the power of a poet after translation.

"Thinking of You"

When will the moon be clear and bright?
With a cup of wine in my hand, I ask the blue sky.
I don't know what season it would be in the heavens on this night.
I'd like to ride the wind to fly home.
Yet I fear the crystal and jade mansions are much too high and cold for me.
Dancing with my moon-lit shadow
It does not seem like the human world
The moon rounds the red mansion Stoops to silk-pad doors
Shines upon the sleepless Bearing no grudge
Why does the moon tend to be full when people are apart?
People may have sorrow or joy, be near or far apart
The moon may be dim or bright, wax or wane
This has been going on since the beginning of time
May we all be blessed with longevity Though far apart, we are still able to share the beauty of the moon together.

Said to be in memory of a great patriot poet of the then State of Chu during the Warring States period (475-221 B.C.), Qu Yuan (Ch'u Yuan), who drowned himself to protest his emperor who gave in to the bully State of Chin. For fear that fish may consume his body, people of Chu threw launched their boats and started throwing rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves into the river where he was drowned to feed the fish. Now the big event of dragon boat contest may be a legacy of such activity. People today still eat the bamboo-leave rice dumplings on the occasion today.

Lantern exhibits, lion and dragon dances, and eating Tang Yuan (ball-shaped boiled sweet rice dumplings with delicious stuffing.) feature this day.