Mid-Autumn Festival
The Mid Autumn Festival, or also called the Moon Festival is like our Thanksgiving where the families come together and eat. The Chinese originally celebrated the Mid Autumn Festival for celebrating thankfulness of heavens bounty. The moon is also part of the festival because of an ancient Chinese folk story, and the festival is celebrated on the Autumn equinox when the moon is full. There is many versions of the story but here is one version.
In the ancient time their was a man named Hou Yi who was a great archer. One year ten suns rose in the sky causing disaster to the people. Yi shot down nine suns and left one to provide light. An emperor admired Yi and gave him the pill of immortality. His wife, Chang'e got ahold of the pill and swallowed it. She then spent the rest of her life on the moon. Every Autumn equinox Yi could get together with his wife because the moon was close. They have cerebrated this festival since the first century. We actually went to the Mid-Autumn Festival down at Victoria Park. There was lots of paper dolls filled with lights, lanterns, and of course food. What amazed me was there was a half sphere made up of 5 Liter water jugs with lights in it the were synchronized to the music. I think it was suppose to represent the moon. There was also a 50 foot (17 meter) Chinese dragon that was to come out at 10:30 pm but we didn't hang around that long.
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| Now thats a lot of people |
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| Paper dolls at the festival |
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| Lanterns |
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| Festival lights |
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| Full moon |
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| The "moon" |
That's it for now
Keep in touch
Joshua
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