Happy Mid-Autumn Festival

Today is a holiday in China -- Mid-Autumn Festival. It's not a national holiday here, which means that employers don't have to give their employees a holiday. Our college did give us today off, though. And even better -- they didn't make us come in to work last Saturday to "make up" for our day off (it's common practice in China to readjust workers' and students' schedules so that they have to come in on the weekends prior to and/or following a national holiday. It's a shitty practice, in my opinion. You don't really end up getting a holiday at all, just a readjusted work schedule).

But back to the Mid-Autumn festival. Supposedly, it began with an uprising:

The Mid-Autumn Festival is believed to commemorate a Chinese uprising against the Mongol rulers of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). Plotting to overthrow the Mongol government, Chinese conspirators exchanged secret messages about the day of the rebellion written on slips of paper and hidden inside mooncakes. The uprising, which brought down the Yuan Dynasty, took place on the 15th day of the eight month of the lunar calendar.

But now it represents something less tumultuous:

Long void of its rebellious meaning, the Mid-Autumn Festival has come to celebrate the end of the summer harvest season when the moon is closest to the Earth. Families would gather together to enjoy the beauty of the full harvest moon and snack on little cakes with a round shape that imitates its fullness.

The small pastries with a thick, sticky filling either of lotus seed or red bean paste are so rich in taste that tradition dictates they have to be cut into slivers and consumed with sips of tea.

I did, indeed, partake in some moon cakes (that's a moon cake in the photo above). In fact, two of my students supplied me with them when they found out that I didn't have any to snack on! I'm curious to see if stores around here have a post-festival reduction on moon cake prices because if they do, I'll be shipping some across the pond to some lucky readers out there :-)

The festival has not come without scandal, though. Food prices are on the rise in China, and people are getting pissed:

The beloved national tradition of nibbling sweet pastry mooncakes and admiring the fullness of the harvest moon in the Mid-Autumn, or Moon, Festival has been hit by China's runaway inflation, forcing vendors to opt for frugal variations of the rich treat.

The round pastries eaten and given away as gifts during the lunar festival, which this year falls on Wednesday, have fallen prey to inflationary pressures along with all other food products. Annual inflation in China hit an 11-year high of 6.5% in August, raising fears of rapid erosion of living standards and potential social unrest.

Producers of mooncakes have found themselves in a bind. As China's food prices have soared, the cost of raw materials to produce the cakes has increased by 15-30% too. But worried that surging prices could touch off unrest across the country, the government has issued stern edicts warning against price gouging and dictated that the prices of the traditional treat should be kept stable.

I haven't seen any social unrest myself, and I certainly haven't seen it on the news (the news, which is controlled by the powers that be, never airs that sort of thing). But I will certainly keep my peepers peeled!

NOTE: Quotes donated by Asia Times Online