The Mooncake Festival

The Mid-Autumn or Mooncake Festival falls on the 15th day of the Eight Lunar Month in the Chinese calendar. Traditionally, it is celebrated to signify the end of the harvest season. Because lanterns are used during the festivities, it is also referred to as the lantern festival in some parts.

The mooncake festival is quite a major one in Malaysia. Here, the Chinese celebrate the festival with family gatherings, prayers to deities and ancestors, serving of mooncakes and the lighting of lanterns. Gifts of mooncakes, in different varieties, are presented to family and friends. To foster closer ties with the Chinese, the Malaysian Ministry of Culture and Tourism often celebrates the festival on a grand scale with events taking place in several states, plus numerous lantern competitions and processions.

During this time, shops in Penang will be busy assembling lanterns out of coloured cellophane paper (mostly red and yellow, for these are auspicious colours), wire and paint. The lanterns assume various shapes that children will love, from cartoon heroes du jour to a carnival of animals. Hung outside shops by the score, they serve the same purpose as colourful barber poles, beckoning all to come, see and buy.

I have fond memories of the Mooncake festival when I was growing up in Ipoh. Back then, I never knew what festival it was or when exactly lanterns were available. All I knew was that once every year, I would look forward to the day when my pigtailed amah cheh would bring me and my two sisters to the old fashioned sundry shops in the central market in Jalan Laxamana. There, amidst excited chattering and badgering the poor amah, we would choose our lanterns. I think my favourite design was the space rocket, while my sisters preferred 'gentler' ones of animals like rabbits, cockerels and fishes. The purchase would, of course, not be complete without a box of short candles. So with lanterns and candles in hand, we eagerly awaited nightfall so we could wander around the garden with our lit lanterns like little treasure hunters. It was fun!

During the festival, wealthy friends of the family would also, without fail, present my mother with a large octagonal hanging lantern. These were really grand and opulent things! The hanging lanterns were usually made of red cellophane paper wrapped tightly around a hexagonal bamboo frame and decorated with brightly coloured ribbons, trimmings and tassels on the outside. On the inside, auspicious figures from Chinese mythology, made from paper, are stuck to the spokes of a wheel-like contraption. This wheel was balanced on a pointed tip resting on a metal thrust pad. When the candles are lit, the heat from the flame would waft through the wheel and cause it to spin round and round on an axis much like a carousel. The figures cast moving shadows on the wall as they spun! It was really very lovely to look at, and it was with much sadness when the festival came to an end, and the lantern was taken down and burnt.

Myths and legends behind the mooncake festival

There are several stories to explain the mooncake festival:

From a religious standpoint, the mooncake festival is a time when offerings of prayer, mooncakes, roasted meat, yam, kuaci (water melon seeds) and Chinese tea are made to deities and ancestors. The air is suffused with the scent of burning joss-sticks and paper.

A Chinese mythological legend tells us of a certain woman called Chang E who, in her quest for immortality, drank her husband's share of a rare and precious elixir. The act transformed her into an immortal and she found herself floating towards heaven. Fearing that she would be reprimanded by the gods for her selfish misdeed, she decided to make an unscheduled stop on the moon. Upon arrival, she found the place to be desolate except for a hare under a cassia tree. Her powers had abandoned her and she was doomed to keep her lonely vigil till the end of time. And since then, she has been fondly associated with the mooncake festival, and some mooncake boxes even feature a drawing of Chang E's ascension to the moon.

The mooncake has also earned a place in Chinese history for playing a key role in overthrowing the Mongols during the Soong dynasty. Secret messages hidden in mooncakes started a rebellion which eventually led to the fall of the Mongolians!

More celebrative events, public holidays and festival in Penang | Visit Malaysia