中秋快乐! (Happy Mid-Autumn Day!)

So it was actually two days ago (September 25) but I was up to my eyes in moon cakes and couldn't be bothered to post a blog.

So what exactly is Mid-Autumn Day?

"The custom of celebrating the moon for both the Han and minority nationalities, can be traced as far back as the ancient Xian Dynasty and Shang Dynasty of China (20th century BC-1060s BC). In the Zhou Dynasty (1066 BCE-221 BCE), the people celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival to worship the moon.

"The practice became very prevalent in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) that people enjoyed and worshipped the full moon. In the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), however, people started making round moon cakes, as gifts to their relatives in expression of their best wishes of family reunion. At night, they came out to watch the full moon to celebrate the festival. Since the Ming (1368-1644), and Qing Dynasties (1644-1911), the custom of Mid-Autumn Festival celebration has become unprecedentedly popular."

(Thanks Wikipedia, David)

In a perfect world, we would have spent the night watching the round moon while enjoying some delicious moon cakes with our loved ones. The foreign office even gave all the foreign teachers a box of moon cakes (complete with knife and fancy toothpicks) for the event.


In reality, the air in Xi'an was too polluted and we couldn't see the sky. So instead, Ali, Shelby and I played Moonopoly (get it?) while choking down 8 strangely flavored fruit cakes until we felt sick.