Moontales

Friday, Sept. 25, is the Mid-Autumn Festival, an important festival second only to the Lunar New Year or Spring Festival. It is celebrated across China and in Chinese communities around the world. Hereabouts it is no longer just a Tsinoy celebration; Pinoys have embraced the festival, with families, barkadas, companies and organizations observing the Mooncake Festival.

That, however, is a bit of a misnomer, for while the mooncake is an integral part of the tradition, the festival is not about the cake but the moon, which is at its biggest and brightest on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, or mid-autumn (zhong qiu).

A cousin in our Viber chat group posted the other week an invitation to a ‘“Mooncake Festival” that her village association was hosting, adding the following query: “I wonder how many Tsinoys today understand or remember the cultural and historical background of the moon festival.” Another cousin said: “I suspect few care,” to which she replied: “My grandpa said in a merchant class society, survival matters more than culture.” Indeed.

I asked my niece Stef, ahead of our advance celebration last Sunday, whether she knew why we have mooncakes. “The messages in the cake to revolt” was her answer.

ChatGPT cautions me to say “According to a famous legend…” when recounting this tale, since it is not an established historical fact; but it’s a good story nevertheless. Han Chinese during the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty were plotting a coup and rebels communicated their plans by hiding messages inside mooncakes, which were widely distributed during this festival. The rebellion succeeded, the Yuan was toppled and the Ming dynasty was established.

A more romantic tale associated with this festival is the one about the maiden in the moon, Chang’e. Her husband Hou Yi the archer saved the kingdom and its people from the disastrous effects of climate change – a major heatwave caused by all 10 suns coming out at the same time – by shooting down nine of the 10 suns. He was rewarded by the gods with the elixir of immortality, which he did not take since he didn’t want to be separated from his wife. But one day, to keep the elixir from being stolen by a very bad guy – probably a cong-tractor – Chang’e drank it and immediately began to float heavenward. She chose to live on the moon, closest to Earth.

I don’t know how the Jade Rabbit got into the story, but the legend has it that it’s there in the moon, keeping Chang’e company and constantly pounding herbs to make more of the elixir of immortality – for whom and for what purpose, I guess only the rabbit knows.

So on Friday night when the moon is big and bright, you might just see them both if you look closely enough. I hope it’s a clear night so we can see the harvest moon in its full glory. Do join Hou Yi and look up to see Chang’e and think of those you love who are far away.

Mid-autumn is harvest time for the largely agricultural (at least in ancient times) southern China, where most of our ancestors are from. Thus it is a time of plenty, and families gather for a feast, a tradition that is still observed today.

Mooncakes are of course round; any square ones – and I’ve seen some – are blasphemy. A glossy deep brown pastry encases a rich filling of lotus or red bean paste, with one or two salted egg yolks. Some varieties have a mix of seeds and nuts. These days you can have different flavors of mooncakes – pandan, ube, cheese, even savory ones. They used to come in a red and gold tin of four cakes, and the tins are reused for holding hairpins or knickknacks or whatever. Cost cutting has substituted cardboard boxes instead, but some outlets have really elaborate containers that can double as purses or jewelry boxes and probably cost more than the cakes which, by the way, are not cheap – anywhere from P375 a piece to P4,888 for a box of four at one hotel.

The dice game associated with this festival is a Hokkien (Fujian, particularly Xiamen) thing, played with six dice in a bowl – it better be a big bowl, so the dice won’t jump out, as that forfeits your turn. My other niece Mart says “the game was invented to entertain soldiers, thus the number combinations mimic their ranks.”

A more common interpretation links it to the imperial exams, thus the number combinations or prize levels refer to the ranks: tsiong guan, the top scholar, is the grand prize, then down six levels to siu tsai, the lowly entry level scholar. There are 32 prizes for the lowest level, then 16, eight, four, two up to the big one. Traditionally, these are different sizes of cakes – the smallest, 32 of these about an inch and a half in diameter, is of course for the poor guy who just made it past the first level of the imperial exams; the largest is about 10-12 inches – but who wants to eat all that hopia? So nowadays, different prizes – sometimes even cash – of increasing value are substituted. Tradition dictates that the one who wins the tsiong guan hosts the next year’s celebration.

I didn’t do very well at our dice game last Sunday, although I did get one of the two prizes in the second highest level and a paltry two of the saling pusa prizes. My dog FJ lucked out, as those who won pears gave them to him, pears being his favorite snack.