Mid-Autumn Festival comes with mixed feeling
Updated: 2007-09-25 19:27
The Mid-Autumn festival, which falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth month on the lunar calendar, is considered an occasion for family members and loved ones to congregate, eat moon cakes, light lanterns while enjoying the full moon - an auspicious symbol of abundance, harmony and luck.
The festival was flavored by the legend of Chang'e, a lonely fairy on the moon. According to the legend, she was the beautiful wife of Hou Yi, a hero who shot down nine suns scorching the earth but was slew by his apprentice Feng Meng. Threatened by the murderer, Chang'e drank the elixir and flew to the moon.
Many people are calling for the festival to be made a one-day holiday for fear that traditional celebrations are dwindling by the year.
Dai Liqin, a 22-year-old college student at Xiamen University, said that when she was young the Mid-Autumn Festival was an important occasion in her hometown of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, when moon cakes and fruits were offered to local temples and elderly women prayed for blessings.
Theatrical troupes were invited to perform in villages and families sat around tables with luxurious dinners.
"Now that family members can't gather on the festival, such celebrations have become a memory," she sighed.
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