Mid-Autumn Festival

I don’t remember the last time I celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival with my mother in Hong Kong. We tried a couple of different mooncakes, including one with orange peel from Chiu Chow/Chao Zhou, which was exquisite.

There’s a saying 月是故鄉圓, “The moon is rounder in your hometown.” Although I grew up in Hong Kong, I must say the skies are generally clearer in the US.

Mom got a lot of exercise walking to the park. Growing up in Hong Kong, I played with lanterns lit with candles. Lanterns have electric lights now. I saw a sign in a park warning people not to light fires. Burning wax in a mooncake tin was one of my fondest memories from childhood. Times have changed. The climate has also changed. I couldn’t believe we were still using air conditioning during the festival, and there was a Signal 3 typhoon the following week. I think I’m going to rename this the Midsummer Festival.

Mom wasn’t interested in lanterns, so I didn’t look for them. I stumbled upon some in a store in Shau Kei Wan and bought one for next year.