Mooncakes

Today's post has nothing to do with recycling or trees. This blog is about saving the earth, and we believe that mission includes promoting peaceful coexistance.

So...

CHINA

Any uber-liberals out there are probably gnashing their teeth at the mere mention of the word, yes? Human rights violations, pollution, "oh no they'll cut off my arms if I don't act excited for the Olympics," that poor Dalai Lama guy, censorship of facebook...uh huh. But before y'all get all high and mighty, think about our own history. Abu Ghraib, massive industrialization, extermination of Native Americans, McCarthyism...we haven't exactly been pure and holy either.

Putting the moralistic rant aside, let's learn about China's ancient Mid-Autumn Festival.

Now, anyone who's ever been Asian knows that on Zhong Qiu Jie (that's what it's called), you eat mooncakes!

These rich pastries, known as yue bing, can be filled with all kinds of good things. My favorites are lotus and red bean pastes. Really traditional mooncakes have a salted duck egg tucked inside as well.

There's a myth behind the mooncakes which has hundreds of variations. This is the one I was told as a wee tot:

Once, long ago, ten suns blazed in the sky. They scorched the fields and dried the seas, and the people on earth were dying. The king of the heavens, Jade Emperor, asked the hero archer Houyi to shoot down nine of the ten suns. When he succeeded, Houyi became king of the earth and was given a beautiful wife named Chang'e. Over the years, Houyi grew obssessed with immortality. He traveled deep into the mountains to find Jade Emperor's mother, who gave him two pills containing the Elixir of Life. The only condition was that he and Chang'e couldn't take the pills until they had prayed, fasted, and made offerings for a whole year.

One day, when Houyi was out hunting, a treacherous servant broke into his home in search of the Elixir. To protect the world from an undying evil, Chang'e swallowed the pills herself. She began to float, out the window and into the skies, farther and farther into the heavens. Chang'e came to rest on the moon, where she met the Moon Rabbit. Houyi tried to run to the moon, but the winds held him back. In his grief he became a tyrant, and he was eventually beaten to death by his subjects. Today, the shadows we see on the moon are really Chang'e and the Moon Rabbit.

And we eat mooncakes.