Moon Festival in Taiwan

Let’s take a day off to gather with family and watch the moon.

On the 15th of August (lunar calendar), it’s the annual Moon Festival, or Mid Autumn Festival, in Taiwan. I feel like that in Taiwan we don’t get a lot of days off through out the year, and Moon Festival is one of the most important national holidays that people look forward to(No work, yay!) For us, Moon Festival is not only a holiday, but also a chance for family to gather together.

Moon Festival consists of 3 essential elements:

Full moon

Although Mid Autumn Festival is the official name of this day, but I prefer the name Moon Festival. And naturally, the moon takes a big part in this festival. It’s always full moon on this day, according to the lunar calendar, every 15th will have full moon, and the lunar calendar is never wrong.

Family 

Full moon actually has the meaning of “reunion”: the pronunciation of the round shape is similar to the pronunciation of reunion. In Chinese culture, we use a lot of puns and they usually have positive meanings. What we do on this day is that we gather together with family and watch the moon, have dinner, and just catch up. Nowadays everyone is so busy and occupied with school and work, people are rarely home with parents or siblings. Moon Festival definitely is a great occasion to bring every family member back and simply enjoy some quality time together.

Moon cake and other pastry

Moon cake is a typical and must eat dessert on Moon Festival. Moon cake comes in different shapes and flavors, too: red bean paste, mung bean paste, egg yolk filling etc. There are also other kinds of pastry, and my personal favorite is pineapple cake. But don’t underestimate its size, it may be small, but it contains a crazy amount of calories; one moon cake is about 4 piece of fried chicken drumsticks…!

Do lots of exercise after enjoying these tasty pastry!

 

 

 

Yutzu

Yutzu is a kind of citrus fruit, I think you can only find it in Asia, because I have never seen it anywhere else. It has a wonderful and refreshing scent, and very delicious, too! It takes some effort to peel off the thick skin of yutzu, though. Big yutzu is not the sweetest, the sweetest would be the very small and ugly ones that are grown in old trees, so don’t judge the yutzu by its appearance!

(On the right is the sweetest one!)

 

Finally, having BBQ is another thing that people do during Moon Festival, although I never really quite understand how BBQ became a thing. It is said that after a TV commercial created an image that having BBQ on this day is a must, and it became a thing ever since.

Either way, I love how Moon Festival gives people an opportunity to gather with friends and family!

Happy Moon Festival everyone 🙂