中秋节——Mid Autumn Festival

I feel like there are a lot of things I could write about but I want to talk a little about this weekends Zhong Qiu Jie, or Mid-Autumn Festival. I had no idea what this holiday was until about a week ago. How I actually found out is pretty funny/embarrassing. I usually eat lunch at this student cafeteria near my dorm. It is the cheapest one on campus, and not really very tasty, but I like going there because Im usually the only foreigner in the place. Anyway, previously I had met this older woman who kind of took a liking to me. She came and sat with me and we tried speaking Chinese but I could not understand 90% of what she was saying. And it seemed the more I told her I did not understand the faster she spoke! So last week I came there for lunch and I hear a shout from across the room,

"DOU NING!!!" (my chinese name) And there she was. She began speaking lightning fast and incredibly loud and soon a lot of Chinese people were just staring at us. And then she wanted to show me all the cafeteria had to offer, grabbed my arm and started leading me around.

"Oh, look at this dish....blah blah blah....oh this dish is really healthy....blah blah...etc. etc."*

Now a lot of people were staring at us and laughing and I was powerless to do anything because I am stuck in a mutes body! Finally I ordered my food and she came and sat down with me. Then she began talking and talking and I was picking up words here and there. My understanding was something like this,

"This weekend...blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah....my son and family...blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah....want...blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah....eat dinner...blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah...whats you phone number?....blah blah blah blah blah blah."

I could pretty much figure out what she was saying but because there was so much other stuff I did not understand, I could not be sure. Then she wrote it down on a note, which I also did not understand, and told me to have someone else translate it. She also gave me her phone number. Basically she wanted to invite me to her house to have dinner with her family for the mid-Autumn Festival...an incredibly nice gesture! However, I never gave her a call just because I did not feel very comfortable around her. I cant really explain it. Also, Chinese students have a three day weekend because of the holiday but us Waiguoren (foreigners) still had to go to school on Monday and I had a lot of homework to do that weekend so it just didnt work out.

I feel like I probably missed out on a good opportunity for an entertaining story but Im sure I will have plenty of those as this year continues.

So what is Zhong Qiu Jie? China uses a lunar calendar called nong li and every August 15, using this calendar, is Zhong Qiu Jie. Apparently on this day the moon is very big and round in the sky. I do not know if this is myth or actually true. To commemorate this day, Chinese people usually have a meal with their families, eat Yue Bing (Moon Cake) and watch the big round moon late at night. Now Moon Cake is very hard to describe. It is a small round pastry filled with a strange fruity filling. All Chinese people over the weekend buy lots of moon cake, it is customary to give them to your friends, teachers and family. I went to the local store to buy me some moon cake as well. They have several different types of filling, most of which I do not understand, so I just bought the most expensive one thinking it would be the best. And the most expensive one I could find was 6 kuai, or just under $1.

Now it looks pretty good, it really does. But honestly, it did not taste very good at all. It is super rich and thick, you have to have some water or something to wash it down. It is hard to describe. It is really sweet but it is a different kind of really rich sweet. Not the melt in your mouth kind of sweet, if that makes sense. So unfortunately I had a lot of homework on this day and I could not attend any of the functions around town. I did try to look at the moon late at night but it wasnt really very large or spectacular. I could hear other people singing and I swear there was all kinds of explosions (fireworks?) all through the night so some people were having a good time (I would guess alcohol was probably involved).

In sum, I learned about an interesting holiday that does not really have an equivalent in western culture. It's really interesting to learn more and more about Chinese holidays and traditions. Hopefully in the future I will not be bogged down so much with school work to miss out on other important cultural events which I would look forward to attending. I just hope there won't be any Moon Cake.

*Blah Blah stands for incoherent Chinese words