Autumn Moon Festival

or the Lantern Festival as it is sometimes known in Singapore is being celebrated at Oliver's school today. We had to make a lantern for Oliver to bring in. Here is my feeble attempt, which I didn't think was that bad looking until I saw the other children's lanterns.The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, is a popular Asian celebration of abundance and togetherness, dating back over 3,000 years to China's Zhou Dynasty. In Malaysia and Singapore, it is also sometimes referred to as the Lantern Festival, similar in name to a different festival which falls on the fifteenth day of the Chinese New Year).

The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month of the Chinese calendar (usually around mid- or late-September in the Gregorian calendar), a date that parallels the Autumn Equinox of the solar calendar. This is the ideal time, when the moon is at its fullest and brightest, to celebrate the abundance of the summer's harvest. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are many different varieties.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the two most important holidays in the Chinese calendar (the other being the Chinese Lunar New Year), and is a legal holiday in several countries (not in Singapore though). Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date. Traditionally, on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomeloes together. Accompanying the celebration, there are additional cultural or regional customs, such as:

* Eating moon cakes outside under the moon
* Putting pomelo rinds on one's head
* Carrying brightly lit lanterns
* Burning incense in reverence to deities including Chang'e
* Planting Mid-Autumn trees
* Lighting lanterns on towers
* Fire Dragon Dances

Shops selling mooncakes, before the festival, often display pictures of Chang'e floating to the moon.

While Westerners may talk about the "man in the moon", the Chinese talk about the "woman in the moon". The story of Chang'e and her flight to the moon, is familiar to every Chinese citizen, and a favourite subject of poets. Unlike many lunar deities in other cultures who personify the moon, Chang'e lives in the moon. Tradition places Houyi and Chang'e around 2170 BC, in the reign of the legendary Emperor Yao, shortly after that of Huang Di.

There are so many variations and adaptations of the Chang'e legend that one can become overwhelmed and utterly confused. However, most legends about Chang'e in Chinese mythology involve some variation of the following elements: Houyi, the Archer; Chang'e, the mythical Moon Goddess of Immortality; an emperor, either benevolent or malevolent; an elixir of life; and the Moon.

See Wikipedia for the legends.