Saturday, September 17, 2005

Mid-autumn Festival

Once again it's the annual Mid-autumn Festival, also known as Mooncake Festival as well as Lantern Festival here in Malaysia. Funny why they don't call it 'yue bing jie' in mandarin though...since there's Mooncake Festival huh. No big celebrations for most of us today...just the occasional fireworks lit by some neighbours. I guess everyone must be occupied with academic stuff. Talking about academic, I haven't started a single slide of my presentation...but hey, I'm not gonna rant about that.

It's a big day for us Chinese. Used to be anyway. It's sad to see all the festivals being so commercialized nowadays. Go to any departmental store and you're sure to spot stalls and shops selling mooncakes, from durian to pandan, cheese to sambal (I kid you not!), and every salesgirl is just dying to let you try a piece of their specialty. It's funny how they can come up with so many types of exotic flavours...what happened to the good old red bean and lotus paste? You can't imagine downing cheese wrapped in the traditional mooncake skin, right? And yet, with the whole variety of mooncakes available, I seldom see people coming out to celebrate. You know, walking around with lanterns (the candle type, not those mutants that run on batteries), sitting in the backyard just marvelling at the great round yellow moon...It's not that I spy on other people's backyards, it's just that you don't get the feel anymore. I wonder how many children now still remember the origins of the mid-autumn festival...

Well I've had my share of mooncakes this year, but thanks to Gurl's mom, looks like I've got another 3 on hand for me to devour. At least I can save on a few meals...heheheh. Happy mooncake festival everyone!

thought completed at 6:14 PM | 0 comments

---------------oOo---------------