The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the biggest holidays in Taiwan, coming in third right after New Year's, and... I believe my teacher said it was like.. a day of celebration for the dead, like your ancestors and stuff. But I'm not quite clear on what this holiday is called. So let's just say it's a big deal. And apparently it's tradition to have a BBQ! And not just any BBQ, we had a BBQ on the sidewalk--yes, under my friends' apartment building, next to a line of mopeds, across the street from a Hi-Life (Taiwanese 7-11). It was freaking AWESOME!!!
Now let me just say, that barbeque-ing is really not as easy as it looks. Sure, it sounds simple enough: put some coal into the grill, light it up, let it get hot, put the food on it, and grill away! But what they don't tell you is just how long it takes for the "getting hot" part to happen. We had to fan away at the coals for what seemed like forever in the hopes that the coals would actually light on fire... and we could see a flame.
taking my turn fanning the coals... don't worry guys, my turn was short :)
It was a great BBQ--once we got the grills working :) there was SO much food!!! My friend Eric (in the black t-shirt above) met some local girls at a club the other week, so they came and brought friends, and--get this--brought A TON of food! There was fatty marbled meat, korean BBQ style, chicken, clams, squid, tofu, bell peppers, mushrooms, and a ton of other things I don't even think I got to eat because I got so full so fast! But these local kids--damn, they can eat. We started eating around 9, and they were still eating at like 12:30 AM! I mean, I thought I could eat, but wow. I was so impressed.
But let me get back to the Mid-Autumn Festival... it's a national holiday (unfortunately it landed on a Saturday this year, so no missing classes for me!), and it always occurs in late September or early October. The date isn't set because the date of the Mid-Autumn Festival goes by the Chinese lunar calendar (that's a whole nother blog entry, so google it if you're curious haha). The importance of this holiday is that it celebrates the Fall Harvest, and on this holiday, it's tradition to eat Mooncakes, or desserts that are called mooncakes.
Now, in order to explain the importance of the mooncakes, it's story time :) Back during the Yuan dynasty, in the 1200s-1300s, China was ruled by Mongolians. This made the Chinese people pissed, obviously, they were like we wanna rule ourselves yo! So the leaders from the Sung dynasty (the dynasty right before the Mongol one) started to organize a rebellion to kick out the Mongols. Since they knew the Mid-Autumn Festival was coming up, they decided to make a TON of special cakes, and they stuffed the plan of attack into each cake and baked them! The rebels attacked on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Mongols got owned and were thrown out. Then came the Ming dynasty, yay! So now, we eat mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn festival to remember this story :)
Hm, what else. Oh yes, there are many variations of this story, but this seems to be the most popular one. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, we celebrate the moon. I'm not really quite sure why (maybe this is why they call them mooncakes? haha), but there's this sweet little story that goes along with it, so here goes: Back in the day (I'm not really quite sure which day this is, but a long long time ago), there was this hero, and his name was Huo Yi, and he was an archer! He was a hero because back during this time, there used to be 10 suns! (shocker) Because there were 10 suns, the peoples' crops would always burn and die. Huo Yi saw that the people were suffering, and so he managed to shoot down 9 of the suns, and left one to help the people. Everyone loved him so much for saving their crops, and the Goddess of Heaven saw this, and as a gift, decided to give him an elixir for immortality, but only enough for one person. Huo Yi had a beautiful wife named Chang'e, and he loved her very much, so he wanted to stay on Earth with her, so he asked her to keep the elixir for him. After Huo Yi became famous, there were many young men who approached him and wanted to learn his archery techniques; of the many, there was one named Peng, who turned out to be a huge jerk because he wanted to steal the elixir of immortality! He went into Chang'e's room one day and was going to steal it!! In order to keep this VILLAIN from gaining immortality, Chang'e quickly drank the elixir herself. And then she began to float!! She floated farther and farther away, but stopped at the moon--the closest she could be to her husband, whom she loved very much. And to this day, Chang'e lives in the moon!
Yeah, I'm not really sure what the purpose of the story is, but there you go. Some Chinese culture for ya!
Happy belated Mid-Autumn Festival everyone!! :)
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