Mid Autumn Festival

Puff the magic dragon - and friends
Looks better at night.
The mythical Chinese guys are watching over things.

Mid Autumn Festival is upon us here in Singapore (and all over Asia). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival

http://www.kevdesign.com/midautumnfestival/

I can feel fall in the air. Here in Singapore temperatures have plummeted from highs of 93 to highs around 92 and the summer flowers are giving way to the fall flowers. It rains a bit more then last month and then the sun comes out and dries the puddles in about 5 minutes. The locals have started to wear their winter clothes often times actually wearing long sleeved shirts and closed toe shoes. Iced coffee has given way to hot coffee. And of course lanterns and moon cakes are everywhere.

First the moon cakes. According to one Chinese folk tale, a Han Chinese rebel leader named Liu Fu Tong devised a scheme to arouse the Han Chinese to rise up against the ruling Mongols to end the oppressive Yuan dynasty. He sought permission from Mongolian leaders to give gifts to friends as a symbolic gesture to honor the longevity of the Mongolian emperor.
These gifts were round moon cakes. Inside, Liu had his followers place pieces of paper with the date the Han Chinese were to strike out in rebellion -- on the fifteenth night of the eighth month.

Thus Liu got word to his people, who when they cut open the moon cakes found the revolutionary message and set out to overthrow the Mongols, thus ending the Yuan dynasty.
Today, far from the exotic and heroic legends, Chinese communities all over the world make and consume moon cakes during the traditional autumn Festival.

In my opinion most of the varieties of moon cakes are rather dense and pretty bad tasting. Made with lotus paste and many egg yolks. Not quite as bad as fruit cake but in the same ballpark. I am told that there is much re-gifting going on in the moon cake world. It is a lucrative business - everybody sells them from all the nice hotels (Shangri-La, Ritz-Carlton, Raffles), the mid and lower level hotels, bakers, restaurants even Starbucks and Hagen Daz. While the taste is kind of bad the packaging is really pretty elaborate and beautiful.

The other big thing is lanterns. All over town you see lanterns and lights. Chinatown is done up with beautiful light up wonders of the world and the famous Chinese Garden has an "under the sea" theme. We haven't gotten to see it all yet but will report more on this later.

Ciao