Autumn Moon Festival

Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节, zhōngqiūjié) lands on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, relatively near the autumnal equinox; in 2014, it falls on September 8. Also sometimes called Mooncake Festival, it is a public holiday in China and Taiwan on which families gather to give offerings to the full moon, float sky lanterns and eat mooncakes (月饼, yuèbing).
A culinary tradition with legendary roots, mooncakes are sold everywhere from grocery stores to five-star hotels and come with competing origin stories that relate how these sweets came to represent the holiday.

Mid-Autumn Festival was inspired by the mythical story of Chang’e, the “Lady of the Moon.” Once upon a time, the world had 10 suns, all of which lived in a mulberry bush together, and each day one sun would be drawn around the world in a carriage. But one day, all 10 suns took to the sky, and their heat destroyed the crops and set the earth on fire. To save the world, the archer Houyi shot nine of the suns down, and the emperor rewarded him with an immortality pill.

The legends differ on how Houyi’s wife, Chang’e, got the pill and consumed it, but one thing is certain: it made her fly. Houyi tried to chase her but was turned back by blustery winds. By then, Chang’e had landed on the moon, where she remains to this very day. By some trick of the gods, Houyi has found his own place in the sun, and each year on Mid-Autumn Festival, the husband and wife are reunited and the moon glows its brightest. Offerings to the moon and Chang’e are required that day, and over time the most popular contribution became the round mooncakes that reflect the beauty of the moon.

The Autumn Moon Festival: A little history
In China, the Mid-autumn festival is the second most important festival after the Spring Festival to Chinese people. Every year, when the festival comes people go home from every corner of the country and the world to meet their family and have dinner with them, admire the full moon and eat moon cakes.
Chinese people believe a full moon is a symbol of peace, prosperity, and family reunion. On Mid-Autumn Festival night the moon is supposed to be the brightest and fullest, which is why the festival is also known as the "Day of Reunion" and the "Moon Festival" .

Tet Trung Thu, as it is known in Vietnam, is a wonderful ancient festival that revolves around children. In a Vietnamese folklore, parents work so hard to prepare for the harvest, where they left their children play by themselves. To make up for the lost time, parents use the Mid-Autumn Festival as an opportunity to show their love and appreciation for their children. Children sing, dance and carry colorful lanterns on the street. A special lantern is designed to spin when a candle is inserted into it, symbolizing the earth circling the sun.

This weekend to celebrate we went to a Chinese restaurant with some other families and had so much fun doing crafts, eating dinner and at the end we launched our own family lantern. The kids had so much fun, they got dressed in their Chinese dresses and jacket and their favorite part was the lantern. We wrote our family wish on the lantern before sending it up.
The moon will be it's fullest and brightest on Sept 9 this year. It's the last of the super moons for 2014, we plan on sitting outside and watching the moon and eating our moon cakes.

Busy Weekend

it's the last weekend before the kids all go to school, and we had a busy Saturday planned. We went to the local fire department, they had an open house where the kids could see all the trucks and get inside and check them out. A bounce house and free hats, pencils and coloring books. After all the fun we had a free lunch cooked by the firemen. It was a lot of fun!
Then we went to our neighborhood picnic, the kids got to play games and have second lunch. P and I got to talk with neighbors and meet some new people. We didn't last too long at this though, it was a really hot day and the kids were getting so hot running around, so we left for out last event.

At our festival this weekend, all the children made dumplings. It's something we have been participating in for a couple of years now and this year the kids really loved doing it. They each take a little dough and roll it out, then we put a little of the meat and veggie mix in the middle and carefully roll them up, that's the key, folding them so the dough is completely closed and the meat doesn't boil out. We put them into a net to keep them all together and they are cooked in large pots. This year the kids loved eating them and they actually came out really yummy!

Each child was able to enter in the a contest for the best dumpling. Nate and Paige entered their best and then all the kids were told the story of how the dumpling came to be.

According to one version, the dumpling was invented by Zhang Zhongjing, a well-known herbal medical doctor of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
His medicinal was called quhuan jiao’er tang (herbal soup to dispel the cold and protect the ears). It consisted of mutton, red spicy peppers, and other necessary medicinal herbs. Zhang soaked them completely in water and heated them in the cauldron over a fire until the water boiled. Zhang then took all the things out of the cauldron, mincing them into stuffing. His assistants rolled out dough into each small pancake. They put the stuffing in the center of the pancakes and wrapped them in the shape of a ear. These tiny things were named jiao’er or “the ear protection”, and were then all dropped into the herb soup to cook. Zhang offered each patient a bowl of the soup and two jiao’er dumplings. The patients drank the soup and ate the dumplings and soon their whole body got so warm, including their ears.
For the following days, they continued eating dumpling and drinking soup, and their ear chilblains (swollen or frost bitten ears) gradually disappeared.

This Saturday, the dumplings in this contest were judged for looking the most like an ear, not on taste. Nathaniel won the contest this year and he was so excited, his dumpling looked the most like an ear (see below)!

We had a great day and are now getting ready to start school on Monday.

dad got into making a dumpling too

Nate made the best dumpling!