Mooncake-obsessed German nabbed

Blame it on the full moon – the mid-autumn moon, at that.

It seems that not only Chinese-Filipinos are celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is celebrated tonight – the 15th day of the 8th lunar month – when the moon is at its brightest.

German national Baur Horst, 61, a resident of Marikina City, was caught stealing mooncake and hopia, traditional Chinese delicacies, from a supermarket in Cubao, Quezon City last Saturday.

Security guards at Rustans Supermarket in Ali Mall apprehended Horst when he left the store with P400 worth of mooncakes, hopia and tetrapak drinks without paying for them.

Investigation showed that Horst entered the supermarket at 8 p.m. on Saturday and immediately proceeded to the Chinese food section. When confronted by security guards, Horst said he had no money to pay for the food items, but “he was obsessed with eating mooncake,” one of the guards said.

He was turned over to the Quezon City Police.

Tsinoy families are gathering together tonight for the traditional dinner to celebrate the Moon Festival, one of the most important holidays in the lunar year. Featuring prominently are round mooncakes, filled with lotus or mongo (mung bean) paste, with nuts, watermelon seeds and even salted egg yolks added in.

The celebration dates back over 3,000 years to the Zhou Dynasty in China. The festival coincides with the autumn equinox of the solar calendar, and is tied to the flight of Chang’e to the moon. It is also marked as the Harvest Moon Festival as farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvest season.

This occasion is also said to have led to the overthrow of the Mongol rulers of the Yuan Dynasty (1280-1368). At the time, group gatherings were banned, so rebels could not plan an uprising against the cruel rulers. But realizing that the Mongols did not eat mooncake, rebel leaders sought permission to distribute mooncakes to all the people in the city, purportedly to seek blessing for the Mongol ruler.

Inside these mooncakes they hid a piece of paper with the message to kill the Mongols on the 15th night of the eighth moon.

Although there are no historical records to support this, it is generally believed that the uprising led to the establishment of the Ming Dynasty in 1368. — With Doreen G. Yu