Moons over Shanghammy
There are festive boxes everywhere in the office today. This means only one thing:Happy Mooncake Festival everyone!
What’s a “Mooncake Festival?” Using the amazing power of the INTERNET, I looked it up:
Every year on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, when the moon is at its maximum brightness for the entire year, the Chinese celebrate "zhong qiu jie." Children are told the story of the moon fairy living in a crystal palace, who comes out to dance on the moon's shadowed surface. The legend surrounding the "lady living in the moon" dates back to ancient times, to a day when ten suns appeared at once in the sky. The Emperor ordered a famous archer to shoot down the nine extra suns. Once the task was accomplished, Goddess of Western Heaven rewarded the archer with a pill that would make him immortal. However, his wife found the pill, took it, and was banished to the moon as a result.
Moon fairies? Crystal palaces? Nine suns? This makes Santa and the North Pole look like a pile of puke. Take THAT Christmas!
Initially I was super excited about this festival because any celebration with “cake” in the name is okay by me. Sadly, like every rose has its thorn or every Bush has its George, every mooncake has some gross surprise like a whole duck egg yolk, lotus bean paste or meat.
Meat cakes. Yuck.
(Of course I’ve been eating them all day.)
posted by Karl @ 7:05 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Hi Karl -- "Mooncake Festival" is actually a poor translation of "Rosh Hashonah," via Chinese. In part because we American Jews have helped the Chinese restaurant business by making it part of our traditional Christmas celebration, China reciprocates by celebrating Rosh Hashonah every year and giving it that special moon cake gloss. What you're actually tasting inside the pastries is chopped liver. We're on on our way now to my parents; they serve chocolate mousse fudge cake for Rosh Hashonah, but that's assimilation for ya. L'shana tovah, Karl.
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