Zhong qiu jie kuai le!

Well, they say something about the best of intentions, and I must apologize for not posting during Rhonda's absence. The paper blew up into a 36-page behemoth within a period of weeks, and I slaved hours over it, finally finishing last Friday night at 1:30am. I gave my presentation on Saturday, did some things on Sunday, at which point my body decided it was Far Too Old (tm) to do any late nights any more. That's a note for future reference, because I am sure I will look back and laugh as to my naivite. Anyhow:

中秋節快樂

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! The five characters above are the Chinese characters for "Happy" (last two characters - same characters used in "Happy Birthday", "Happy New Year's," "Happy Christmas" - none of this Merry stuff) and literally Mid-Autumn Festival.

(You might need to change your browser settings to "Unicode" or "Chinese Big-5" to read it - the first character is a box with a vertical line through it.)

This festival is the biggest Chinese celebration outside of Chinese New Year's, and isn't really as well-known among those who aren't Chinese.

Of course, Wikipedia has an excellent article about the festival. From an second generation's perspective, the holiday is nothing about the various stories mentioned; it's all about the food.

Moon Cakes (or 月餅 ﹣ yue bing）is the name of the game, plus a feast with family on the eve of the holiday, much like we celebrate New Year's with a party on New Year's Eve. I guess the biggest thing about it is family and celebrating the year as a whole. In my family, it's a little different because it's my dad's birthday - so really we just get together and celebrate my dad's birthday.

Best brands to get: Sheng Kee if you find one in your area, or Sheng Kee brand moon cakes. It's probably a little late for you to get moon cakes now, but you can get the leftovers tomorrow for heavily slashed prices, I'm guessing. Best flavors? I like them all, though the initiates might want to start with the red bean and move on to the more exotic flavors, including lotus seed paste and 3-seed. I prefer not to get the kind with the duck egg yolk, mostly because it's a) to salty and b) too rich, and you guys all know I'm one of those crazy health nuts from California.

Oh yeah, and don't eat a whole one on your own. You'll get sick. :P

So spend this weekend with family, make a huge dinner, and celebrate the year's harvest together - that's what we'll be doing at home!

中秋節快樂!