Mid Autumn Festival

Last week, I experienced my first Mid Autumn Festival when they celebrated it here last week. It happens amazingly enough mid way through Autumn! and on that day the moon is apparantly at its fullest and brightest and roundest I think. On the day, many people light lanterns, eat mooncakes and also spend time with their family. Most public places were beautifully decorated with these lanterns which are strung across parks, hung from ceilings and floated in the sea across Hong Kong in the run up and during the festival. It is so lovely to see.

One traditional custom of the period is the giving and the sharing of mooncakes amongst family and friends. My teacher-in-charge, Cecily gave me one such cake, which are a real speciality and like nothing you would have experienced in the U.K. or at least I haven't! In the past, people really used to save up throughout the year in order to buy these cakes and be able to have them and give them to their families but nowadays it is less the case. However, special stalls are set up in the mtr stations so people can buy them in the few days beforehand and most of the bakeries are jammed full of people wanting boxes of mooncakes. It is very common to see people with signature boxes of mooncakes as you walk and travel around the city.

Aesthetically, it looks like very delicate. They are round and have the stamp of the bakery written on them and also Chinese symbols of the clouds, the moon and the rabbit(in Chinese of course, Cecily has to tell me that they do!)The traditional type of mooncake has nowadays been overtaken almost by the plethora of new forms of mooncake, which are usaully sweet. Indeed, haagan daaz has its own mooncake selection in Hong Kong (which appear quite popular among the students at my school!)

They are round pastries, usally about an inch thick - the closest way I can (crudely) describe them is like pork pies! They are filled with lotus seed paste (which is sort of clear, greyish substance, maybe the consistency of fudge or something quite dense. And then, within this paste, there are salted duck egg yolks - yes you are reading it right, they look and indeed taste like hard boiled egg yolks. And the taste...well unique, original, interesting are all words I have used in my description when I have been given some to try in front of local people. Luckily, most local people do not like them anyway. As I tried to share out the one I had been given by Cecily in the staff room, the looks people were giving both me and it, told me that they had had more than their fair share of such cakes!

On the night of the Mid Autumn Festival, a group of us took lanterns and wine! (no mooncakes sadly) to Repulse Bay, a beach on the Island, where lots of people had bought lanterns, glow sticks, food and drink etc. It was a really lovely evening and of course you can see the moon quite clearly (relative to the city!) It is incredible to be able to sit out in a t'shirt until midnight here although I can't tell you how excited I am to wear jumpers (and not because the air conditioning is too cold which is my only need for long sleeves at the moment!)

My school also had a Mid Autumn Festival Event which was so lovely and I real bonding experience for me with the students as they were out of their school uniform and with their parents. The covered playground was strung with lanterns, from which you hang riddles and people have to go round and answer them (again in Chinese so I had NO chance until someone came and translated it for me!) I wandered around not knowing ANYONE! apart from some of the children who, understandably had better things to do than talk to the English teacher all night. However, I decided that actually they hadn't and imposed myself on unsuspecting children to chat to them. The children were shy mainly and reluctant but the parents...anything but! They were extremely keen for their children to chat to me and for me to chat to them in English and wanted lots of photos with me! Parents would bring children I did not even know up and we would have photos together! The best thing about it is that we had had so much rain that day and I had not been home and so I looked A MESS! I had wet bottoms of my trousers, my hair was frizzy...oh it was joyful! But, on a more serious note, the parents see it as extremely important for their children to learn English and not only learn it, (which they do, many many lessons a week - it puts our language learning to shame) but be able to use it and speak it and their is a key dispaity in levels. many parents told me they wanted thier children to speak more English. So, after having promised lots of parents that yes I would speak to thier child and listened to thier ideas etc, I was convinced that you have to be cruel to be kind. Even if these children dont care less about learning to speak more English, not only is it my job, but their families are also behind it, and understand clearly how very important having english as a language is.

It made me ashamed chatting to all of these parents at how few languages i know. These parents speak Cantonese, probably Mandarin as well and also on the whole very good English which is extremely admirable. It is helpful of course to live in a multilingual society. Although the most widely spoken and used language here is Cantonese, people are explosed daily to English. for example, the annoucnemtns on the mtr are in 3 languages, and the media, through papers, tv, etc, and signs around the city are in both English and Chinese. However, it really is an invaluable skill to know different languages and I will try and take advantage and pick up as I can while I am here especially considering the rising prominence and place of China in the world. While they are keen to learn English, recognising it as a global language, equally Chinese will be more and more widely used as it is appearing to pick up and recover faster than most of the western economies from the downturn. Ha, enough of my pro China rant!

Sufficed to say, I really enjoyed experiencing a completely new festival here and its a great way to get to learn more about how people live here as you ask questions and learn about what they do and how they spend their holidays.

Oh, and don't worry, I will be true to the hospitable tradition of handing out mooncakes to one and all when I am back home..I don't want anyone to be missing out!