The festival commemorates a 14th-century uprising against the Mongols. In a cunning plan, the rebels wrote the call to revolt on paper and embedded them in cakes that they smuggled to compatriots.
Today, during the festival, people eat special sweet cakes known as “Moon cakes,” made of ground lotus and sesame seed paste, egg yolk, and other ingredients. Along with the cakes, shops sell coloured Chinese paper lanterns in the shapes of animals and, more recently, in the shapes of aeroplanes and spaceships. On this family occasion, parents allow children to stay up late and take them to high vantage points such as The Peak to light their lanterns and watch the giant autumn moon rise while eating their moon cakes. Public parks are ablaze with thousands of lanterns in all colours, sizes and shapes.
Chang O Flees to the Moon
According to a famous Chinese legend, the sky was lit by ten suns, whose combined heat scorched the earth and crops, so the people had nothing to eat. To save the world from imminent starvation, China’s most famous archer, Hou Yi, shot down nine suns with his bow and then rid the land of poisonous snakes and beasts so people could live in peace and happiness. Unfortunately for Hou Yi, these ten suns turned out to be the sons of the Jade Emperor, who was so angered by the loss of his sons that he banished the archer with his wife, Chang O, and children from the face of the earth.
When the Western Goddess discovered what had happened, she took pity on Hou Yi, giving him an elixir of immortality. But Chang O greedily swallowed the potion by herself, and as the concoction worked through her body, she became lighter and lighter and floated up into the sky. Fearing that the deities in heaven would laugh at her, she took refuge on the moon, building a palace known as the “Cold Palace,” where she lives to this very day as the Lady of the Moon. Since it is believed that Chang O floated to the moon on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, people offer annual prayers and sacrifices to the moon on that day to commemorate the event.
Legend of Eating Mooncakes
According to popular belief, the custom of eating mooncakes began in the late Yuan dynasty. As the story goes, the Han people of that time resented the Mongol rule of the Yuan Dynasty and revolutionaries, led by Chu Yuan-chang, plotted to usurp the throne. Chu needed to find a way of uniting the people to revolt on the same day without letting the Mongol rulers learn of the plan. Chu’s close advisor, Liu Po-wen, finally devised a brilliant idea. Rumour spread that a plague was ravaging the land and that the disaster could be prevented only by eating a special mooncake distributed by the revolutionaries.
The mooncakes were then distributed only to the Han people, who found the message “Revolt on the fifteenth of the eighth moon upon cutting the cakes open.” Thus informed, the people rose together on the designated day to overthrow the Yuan, and since that time, mooncakes have become an integral part of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Fire dragon dance in Tai Hang
Over a century ago, Tai Hang was a village whose inhabitants lived off of farming and fishing. A few days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, a typhoon and a plague wreaked havoc on the village. While the villagers were repairing the damage, a python entered the village and ate their livestock. According to some villagers, the python was the son of the Dragon King.
The only way to stop the havoc that had beset their village was to perform a fire dance for three days and three nights during the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival. The villagers made a big fire dragon of straw and stuck incense into it. They lit firecrackers. They danced for three days and three nights, and the plague disappeared.
