The Mid-Autumn Festival: A Harvest Celebration
The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Cake Festival, is a popular harvest festival celebrated by Chinese people, dating back over 3,000 years to moon worship in China’s Shang Dynasty. The Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese lunar calendar, which is usually around mid or late September in the Gregorian calendar. It is a date that parallels the Autumn and Spring Equinoxes of the solar calendar. The traditional food of this festival is the moon cake, of which there are many different varieties.
Traditionally, on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes together.
The Legend of Houyi and Chang’e
One of the most famous stories about the Mid-Autumn Festival is Houyi and Chang’e. There are many versions of this story. The following is one of them. Chang’e and Houyi were immortals living in heaven. One day, the ten sons of the Jade Emperor transformed into ten suns, causing the earth to scorch. Having failed to order his sons to stop ruining the earth, the Jade Emperor summoned Houyi for help. Houyi, using his legendary archery skills, shot down nine of the sons, but spared one son to be the sun. The Jade Emperor was obviously displeased with Houyi’s solution to save the earth. As a punishment, he banished Houyi and Chang’e to live as mere mortals on earth.
Seeing that Chang’e felt extremely miserable over her loss of immortality, Houyi decided to travel on a long, perilous quest to find the pill of immortality so that the couple could be immortals again. At the end of his quest, he met the Queen Mother of the West, who agreed to give him the pill, but warned him that each person would only need half a pill to regain immortality.
Houyi brought the pill home and stored it in a case. He warned Chang’e not to open the case, and then left home for a while. Like Pandora in Greek mythology, Chang’e became curious. She opened up the case and found the pill, just as Houyi was returning home. Being nervous that Houyi would catch her discovering the contents of the case, she accidentally swallowed the entire pill, and started to float into the sky because of the overdose. Although Houyi wanted to shoot her in order to prevent her from floating further, he could not bear to aim the arrow at her. Chang’e kept on floating until she landed on the moon. Although she became lonely on the moon without her husband, she did have company. A jade rabbit, who manufactured elixirs, also lived on the moon.
Chang’e-1 Satellite
While Westerners may talk about the “man on the moon”, the Chinese have talked about the “woman on the moon” since thousands of years ago. At last, named after the legendary beauty, the first Chinese circumlunar satellite, Chang’e-1 blasted off on a Long March-3 carrier rocket in 2007, marking the beginning of the Chinese Flying-to-Moon exploration.
