The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival or Mooncake Festival, is China's second-largest festival after the Chinese New Year, with a 3,000-year history of rulers worshipping the moon for abundant harvests.
The event takes place on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month in the Chinese lunisolar calendar, which corresponds to mid-September to early October in the Gregorian calendar. The Chinese believe that on this day, which also happens to be harvest time in the midst of Autumn, the moon is at its brightest and largest size.
Numerous sizes and shapes of lanterns are carried and displayed as symbolic beacons of prosperity and good fortune. Mooncakes, a rich pastry filled with sweet bean or lotus seed paste, are traditionally offered during this event.
More information - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival
Following a good rice and wheat harvest, the celebration was a moment to honour the moon with food offerings. Eating mooncakes and gazing at the moon, a symbol of peace and unity, is a tradition that continues today for outdoor gatherings of friends and families. During the year of a solar eclipse, it is customary for government offices, banks, and schools to close for an additional day in order to enjoy the extended celestial celebration.
The holiday season is incomplete without the practise of carrying beautifully coloured lanterns. The availability of mass-produced plastic lanterns featuring internationally recognised characters such as Pikachu from Pokémon, Disney characters, Naruto, Angry Birds, Ben 10, Doraemon, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Hello Kitty has resulted in a decline in the production of handcrafted lanterns in recent years.
Mooncake making and sharing is one of the festival's most enduring traditions. Mooncakes are another prominent Mid-Autumn Festival component. A circular shape represents completion and reunion in Chinese tradition. Over the festival week, sharing and eating round mooncakes with family members symbolises the completeness and unity of families.
Mooncakes are traditionally produced on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival in several parts of China. Mooncakes were split into pieces and distributed to family members by the senior household member, symbolising a family reunion. The old practise of making mooncakes at home has given way to the more popular practise of giving mooncakes to family members in modern times, however the concept of familial togetherness has remained unchanged.
Despite the fact that the majority of mooncakes have a diameter of just a few centimetres, imperial chefs crushed designs of Chang'e, cassia trees, and the Moon-Palace onto the surface of mooncakes. The number 13 symbolises the thirteen months of a full Chinese lunar year, and one tradition involves stacking thirteen mooncakes on top of one another to resemble a pagoda. The spectacle of huge mooncake production continues to be performed in modern China.
