Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!!

Before I came over to China, all I knew about the Mid-Autumn Festival was that there was no school and you get to eat mooncakes. It is the first holiday in a series this year with National Holiday starting up next week--that is an eleven day vacation for me!!

I tried talking to my classes and a few of the Chinese students about the holiday--what exactly were we celebrating when we ate those mooncakes? Well, with the help of Adam and Wikipedia, I finally learned the legend behind the Mid-Autumn Festival (also known as the Chinese Moon Festival). There are a few different versions of the legend out there so I combined them to make the story what I wanted it to be:

Chang'e (the goddess of the moon) and her husband Houyi the Archer lived in heaven with the immortals, good people, and fairies. One day the ten sons of the Jade Emperor transformed into ten suns and the Earth began to burn. Houyi, being a great archer, shot arrows at nine of the suns, saving the Earth and leaving one sun to warm the planet. The Jade Emperor was angry--Houyi had just killed nine of his sons--and so he banished Houyi and Chang'e to live as mortals on Earth. 

Houyi saw that his wife, Chang'e, was miserable living her life as a mortal and so he went to the Queen Mother of the West to get an elixir that would make them immortal once again. The Queen gave him a pill that would grant both of them immortality--but the pill was so strong that it needed to be broken in half for each person. Houyi brought the pill home and warned his wife to stay away from it. Curiosity getting the better of her, Chang'e found the pill and ate the whole thing before Houyi could find her.

She began to float up to the moon where she remains to this day with an elixir making rabbit and a man named Wu Gang who continues to try and cut down the cassia tree--the giver of life. Houyi was not willing to shoot his wife with his arrow to stop her from floating to the moon and so he ascended to the sun and they now represent yin and yang. 

The end.

I did find other versions where Houyi was evil and Chang'e ate the pill to stop his greediness and another with Houyi's evil assistant who Chang'e stops by sacrificing herself. Both are pretty badass versions but since the Mid-Autumn Festival is a romantic holiday, I decided to go with the lovey dovey story instead.

So Wednesday was my last day of work. After a long bus ride back from the Xiasha campus filled with too many people and boxes and boxes of mooncakes, I made it back to Cangqian and my holiday began.

The school gives the the gift of mooncakes every year. I had heard tales of these cakes from the likes of Rachel and even got one for Christmas while I was in China last year so I was excited to get the giant box of mooncakes.

And here we see the mooncake box working its hardcore camouflage skills...

There are twelve mooncakes in each box and talk about Russian Roulette! Some are chocolate, green tea, and marzipan while others are egg and meat. The trick it to just make your choice and go with it. I have the God given talent of picking the absolute WORST cakes. My first one ever tasted like a roast beef sandwich back at Christmas time and this year, I did no better--two meat flavors and one that I have no clue what it was. I guess that you could say that was the fun in it all... if Adam hadn't kept getting all the good flavors... >_<

 

Not too sure about our life choices...

The Cangqian gang had a small trip planned for the Mid- Autumn Festival. Thursday (9/19) was the actual holiday of Mid-Autumn. It was quite the romantic holiday spent mostly on buses and wandering around Xiasha, lost. We (DH, Adam, and myself) set out across the city at around 3 o'clock in the afternoon and we finally arrived at Other Adam's apartment at around 7pm. That is a four hour trek just through the city of Hangzhou. We had a few crowded bus rides, we made the mistake of getting off the bus WAY too early, we fought long and hard trying to find a taxi (on a holiday, near a campus... good luck with that, future self!), we wandered around the city for probably an hour... but we laughed and joked along the way making it bearable and (dare I say) even fun? Well, I'm not sure if DH thought it was fun...

While we were walking around, the sun set and the moon started to rise. Luckily, the sky was relatively clear throughout the last week (aka: no pollution) so we've been able to watch the moon get fuller and fuller. Mid- Autumn is a celebration of the moon and it was a beautiful, bright moon that shone down on us on the night of the festival even as we wandered around Xiasha, lost.

Finally, we were able to snag a taxi cab and we piled in and arrived at Other Adam's apartment. How does this bizarre little group celebrate the Mid- Autumn Festival? Poker and street food! The guys were kind enough to try and teach me how to play poker properly (I played years ago in Girl Scouts but I'm sure eight year old girls didn't really follow the rules). I didn't do too terrible... if anything, I think I'm better at poker than I am at Settlers! Later in the night, we were hungry so we wandered around the city and found a mini-metropolis of street food vendors. Score! What was the best part? Vegetables wrapped in bacon (yes I only ate the bacon).

While wandering out and about, we also came upon a claw machine near Other Adam's apartment. Looking in at first, it just looks like a good old fashioned claw machine but upon further inspection:

Yes those are cigarettes in the children's claw machine. My brother is a champion claw machine winner and so after all the guys attempted to win, I gave it a go hoping that maybe some of my brother's skills were inherited and I had the talent as well. Lo and behold, I actually won something from a claw machine... I got me a pack of cigarettes!!

Friday morning, we headed out to the train station to catch a train to Shaoxing. I love riding on trains. I have never ridden one in the US--my first time on a train was in Sweden when I rode into Stockholm for the first time. But this was my first time on a high speed train. I think it is always nice to get away from your home--no matter where it is. You get so used to and comfortable with your home base that you become stagnant; it's little adventures outside your comfort zone that are always fun and the most memorable. It was nice to just sit on the train and watch the city of Hangzhou disappear behind us and mountains and fields come into view as we zoomed by.

So much green!! 

After a 20 minute train ride, we arrived in Shaoxing and met up with the rest of the FoC group in a huge apartment dubbed Zion--this place is bigger than my house back in America with three floors, four bedrooms, and two bathrooms. I think socializing with the rest of the group was just a pretense to get us to Shaoxing where "Big Pizza" is. "Big Pizza" is kind of like Cici's Pizza--it's a pizza buffet. I know I haven't even been over here for a month but damn that pizza was everything I had wanted over the last few weeks. Pizza, ice cream, chicken wings (but not really), french fries, spaghetti, and all you can drink beer (I told you--China is awesome). The Cangqian gents enjoy making fun of me and my inability to finish any of my meals (portions are huge!) but I am proud ot say that I had three plate-fulls of pizza that night.

No shame.

There was probably about 30 people in the house altogether. There were several married couples and so I suppose the hierarchy of life grants them access to the bedrooms so space filled up pretty quick. Couches were taken as well as beds and sleeping bags so both the Adams and I ended up sleeping outside on the balcony. It was ridiculous and so much fun... I have a feeling I won't soon forget about falling asleep out on a balcony during the Mid-Autumn Festival in China. Though I will try to forget about being woken up by rain falling in through the window on me...

Just like camping!!

A trip involving getting lost on the streets of China for hours, sweaty bus rides, cigarettes from claw machines, and sleeping outside would be incomplete without a torrential downpour which we got on Saturday morning just as we were ready to set back out to Cangqian. There was no point fighting it--none of us had our umbrellas or any raincoat so we just ran through the rain, resigned to the fact that we were getting soaked.

Well at least we know one of us looks good in the rain... >_<

 As we tried to get into the Shaoxing train station, we came across an almost impassable obstacle in the history of ever--the Puddle of Doom. It nearly submerged the wheels on taxis and when they did drive through them, I was strangely reminded of Splash Mountain. I almost felt like this was the final level in a video game--you've gotten this far, you have just one more obstacle left in order to make it to your goal. By this point I was soaked to the bone, my shoes had squishy little puddles in them, and I had nothing to lose... I just ran right through the puddle (possibly laughing like a maniac). It was hilarious seeing everyone around us (including the Adams) taking their shoes off and trudging through the water, not thinking about what exactly said water was made up of (other than good old H2O). Either way, everyone was laughing at that point and I think that made everything fun once again (again, I didn't see DH laughing so I'm not sure what his stance is on that).

If this puddle is not terrifying, I don't know what is.

SPOILER ALERT: We made it through and got back to Cangqian in one piece even if we did look like sad little dogs that had been left out in the rain for far too long. It was a fun holiday made up of rain, poker, getting lost, street food, ridiculous claw machine prizes, rain, the full moon, camping out on a balcony, mooncakes, and more rain.

It was a great holiday even if I didn't do too much of what  the Mid-Autumn Festival is all about. I've got one full week of teaching and then it is on to National Holiday!

Until Next Time,
Amanda