Sharing the meaning and history of the Chinese moon festival

The mid-autumn festival fell on 1 October and was celebrated in many Eastern Asian countries. For the Chinese people this festival is a time for family reunion while for the Vietnamese it's more like a children's day. The mid-autumn festival is also called the Moon Festival or the Moon cake Festival and traditionally falls on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese lunar calendar, which is in September or early October in the Gregorian calendar.

In China the mid-autumn festival is the second most important festival after the Chinese New Year and during this time Chinese people like to gather for dinners and light paper lanterns.

The origins of this mid-autumn festival go back to 3,000 years ago when during the Zhou Dynasty it was customary for Chinese people to worship the moon. In China, the ritual of worshipping the harvest moon was held in autumn and in doing so they believed that they will be blessed with a plentiful harvest the following year.

Then the custom of eating moon cakes during this festival started in the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368 AD) when the Mongols were ruling the country. In fact, history has it that secret messages of rebellion against the Mongols were passed on in moon cakes.

In 2008 the Chinese government made this festival a public holiday. Nowadays there is great effort in China to conserve the many customs and traditions related to this festival and during this time many Chinese grandparents and parents like to retell the famous legend of Chang’e to their children.

Legend has it that in ancient times, 10 suns existed and the extreme heat made people’s lives a misery. It was a famous archer with the name of Hou Yi who managed to shoot down nine of the 10 suns and thanks to his heroism he gained the respect of many people. Later, Hou Yi married the beautiful and kind Chang’e and together they lived a happy life. But one fine day, the Queen of Heaven, Wangmu gave to Hou Yi a potion which, if taken, would ascend him to heaven and turn him into a god. However, Hou Yi did not drink the potion but gave it to his wife Chang’e to keep. Unfortunately, a man called Peng Meng secretly saw Hou Yi giving the potion to his wife and three days later, while Hou Yi was out hunting, Peng Meng rushed into the backyard of Hou Yi’s house and demanded the potion. Know

ing that she could not defeat Peng Meng, Cheng’e drank the potion and flew out of the window towards the skies. Her great love for her husband drew her towards the moon and on realizing what had happened to his wife, Hou Yi was so grieved that he shouted Chang’e’s name to the sky. He was very happy to see his wife’s spirit in the moon and so he made an altar to offer food as sacrifice to his wife who had now turned into a goddess. Following Hou Yi’s ritual the tradition of offering sacri

fices to Chang’e and pray for peace and good luck became a popular custom.

With all these customs and tradition in mind let us offer a peaceful and prosperous time to the Chinese people residing in Malta.

Students from St Margaret College Senior Secondary School, accompanied by senior Science teacher Martin Azzopardi sdc and History teacher Joanne Dalli were invited at the China Embassy by H. E. the Chinese Ambassador Mr Jiang Jiang and staff