The Mid Autumn Festival

Yep, another month-long festival kicks off .. and I am not sure if the Hungry Ghosts have even gone home yet! In fact the Mid-Autumn festival proper falls on 3 October, but there will be a jamboree of things happening across Singapore from 11 September - 10 October (apparently).

This festival, aka the Moon Festival of Mooncake Festival is traditionally held around the time of the Autumnal equinox. It is a harvest festival with strong folkloric tales associated to it. For this festival, towns and houses will be festooned with lanterns, and people eat mooncakes (usually a kind of pie with lotus or red bean filling). I remember celebrating this festival at an office in Kuala Lumpur many years ago; we ate food then lit colourful animal lanterns, which had to be burned / destroyed before we went home.


Mooncakes

The legends surrounding the Moon Festival are quite complex, and seem to differ quite a bit. But the sum total of it is that on that night, an immortal (Houyi) living in a palace in the sun visits his wife (Chang'e) who lives in the moon. This is legend's explanation of why the moon is so bright for the Autumnal Equinox. The male sun and female moon also represent 'yin & yang'. For this reason, in olden times, this day also involved a romantic side where young people hoped to find their future husbands and wives.


This year in Singapore I noticed an impressive Mid-Autumn Festival display at Clarke Quay - over the bridge and along the river. Bright and colourful as they are, these 'statues' are actually lanterns too, and so I hope to go at night and see them in their full blinginess!