Taipei/Taoyuan, TAIWAN – This year’s Mid-Autumn Festival, an important holiday celebrated in most East Asian countries, is today, Tuesday, September 17th.
Many families started celebrations on the previous weekend, enjoying the holiday with pomelos, barbecues, and moon cakes.
The first time the Mid-Autumn Festival was documented was in the book Rites of Zhou (周禮) written between 770 BC and 470 BC. At the time, it was just the day when the weather started to become colder. As for the Mid-Autumn Festival, it is widely believed that the celebration of this holiday started in the Tang Dynasty.
Oh-Yang Zhan (歐陽詹), a member of the literati, wrote about the traditions of the festival in his essay 翫月詩序, with enjoying the moonlit views and spending time with family and friends as a big focus.
While keeping the main concept, modern celebrations of the Mid-Autumn Festival have evolved in different countries and regions.
In Taiwan, families enjoy eating pomelos, a grapefruit-like fruit that is harvested in autumn. Another theory for eating pomelos is the Mandarin pronunciation yo-tzi (柚子), which sounds similar to “child far away traveling” (遊子).
Since the Mid-Autumn Festival is a holiday of family gatherings, the pomelo symbolizes the happiness of a family member coming back home from work or studying.
Barbecues are a unique aspect of Taiwanese Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations. A 1980s ad slogan from sauce brand Wanjiashan (萬家香) – “One house barbecues and 10,000 houses smell nice” (一家烤肉萬家香) spurred more people to barbecue. And the “10,000” part is clever wordplay on the brand name’s meaning.
The success of this ad spurred a tradition for the Mid-Autumn Festival – friends and family gathering together to enjoy a barbecue.
Moon cakes have always been a part of the Mid-Autumn Festival, with some translations even calling the festival the Moon Cake Festival.
Moon cakes are round traditional pastries, sometimes with elaborate scenes of moon-related myths pressed onto the surface.
Moon cakes in Taiwan are usually filled with red bean paste and salted egg yolks, and are a popular choice for gifts, especially in a business setting.
This year’s Mid-Autumn Festival is slightly different than in previous years. Workers get a single day off on Tuesday instead of also taking Monday off to create a four day holiday weekend.
According to the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration of the Executive Yuan, the change came because of widespread complaints about having to “repay” a day of work or school on another Saturday in exchange for the extra time off.
Apparently the people of Taiwan would rather not have a four day weekend if they have to make up the time another day. Still, many people were expected to take Monday off as a paid vacation day.
Yuhan Tsai is a Junior Reporter with Youth Journalism International.
