Full moon festival

Back in Sydney, I continue learning about Asia. Last Monday, Joey invited us to play Mahjong, a very popular Chinese game which mixture some elements of dominos and poker. It was quite fun, but the first challenge was to read the pieces, as the symbols were in Mandarin. In the picture beside you can see SuSu with the symbols of good luck.

After playing, we ate full moon cakes, a very, very, very (can’t say very enough) dense cake, made of lotus seeds, with a yolk inside, not salty, not sweet. At this point of the year, Chinese people give each other this sort of cakes as part of the celebration of the full moon festival.

This festival happens because of the following legend:

“The earth once had ten suns circling over it, each taking turn to illuminate the earth. One day, however, all ten suns appeared together, scorching the earth with their heat. Hou Yi, a strong and tyrannical archer, saved the earth by shooting down nine of the suns. He eventually became King, but grew to become a despot.

One day, Yi stole the elixir of life from a goddess. However, his beautiful wife, Chang'e, drank it in order to save the people from her husband’s tyrannical rule. After drinking it, she found herself floating, and flew to the moon. Yi loved his divinely beautiful wife so much he did not shoot down the moon.”