To the moon, Alice!
Belated Mid-Autumn Festival greetings to you all! We experienced our first Chinese holiday yesterday. Well, the first experienced in China, that is. Sunday was the Mid-Autumn Festival, to use the local (translated) parlance. In Seattle, we called it the Moon Festival. Why the discrepancy, I don't know. Maybe "Moon Festival" is the Hong Kong/Cantonese phrase, or maybe that's just an Anglo name that stuck.I saw the Mid-Autumn decorations go up about a month ago, in a store in Kunming. For some reason, I thought that the festival was right around the corner. I should've realized that China and the U.S. aren't that different. Anyway, as the weeks passed, I saw more and more displays, mostly hawking mooncakes, the traditional Mid-Autumn delicacy. Finally, in this final week, bakeries and corner markets were blocking the sidewalk with their displays and temporary booths were erected by the major open air market.
As we got closer to the festival day, we realized we didn't know quite how to behave. I mean, we've been on the receiving end of mooncakes before, back in Seattle. That part's pretty easy. What we didn't know if we were required to give mooncakes or any other sort of gift. We did run into a couple of our fellow expats as they were making their own mid-Autumn deliveries. They suggested that we give a gift to our dean and lifeline, Thad. So, on Thursday, while we were at the store I call the Not Wall Market, we pored over the Mid-Autumn gift boxes and, ignoring the horrendous English marketing type (a post in itself), we selected something we hoped Thad and his family would like. When we presented Thad with the gift, he didn't seem to be overwhelmed with gratitude, but he didn't stop talking to us either.
Back on the receiving end, we did get our own box of mooncakes and an invitation to a Mid-Autumn party. But maybe I'll save that tale for tomorrow.
posted by John @ 7:50 AM
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