Mid-autumn Festival

Mid-autumn Festival is a traditional Chinese festival. It falls on the 15th day of August, in lunar calendar A few days before the festival; everyone in the family will help to make the house clean and beautiful. Lanterns will be hung in front of the house.
There will be a big family dinner on the mid-autumn festival. People who work far away from their homes will try to come back for the union. At night the moon is usually round and bright. All the families set together and enjoy the round, bright moon.
There are two legends about the mid-autumn festival.

A:

There were ten suns around the Earth, the temperature of the ground was so high, and people were not able to farm. There was a skillful archer named Hou Yi, and he was the strongest man at that time. He shot nine of the suns down. The Earth was saved by him. As his reward, the Heavenly Queen Mother gave Hou Yi the Elixir to help him became to an immortal hero. Hou Yi had a beautiful wife named Chang-Er. Chang-Er did not want to Hou Yi becomes to a God, and she wanted to live with Hou Yi forever. Chang-Er stole the elixir from her husband. One day, there was an enemy of Hou Yi came to Hou Yi’s house, but there was just Chang-Er in the house. Chang-Er had to eat the elixir to save her life. Then, she fled to the moon. She was not able to back to the Earth, and because she lives in the moon, she invented the moon cakes.




B:

During the Yuan Dynasty, there was an underground group led named Zhu Yuan Zhang. He wanted to save the country from Mongolian dominance. He and his insurrectionary were not so powerful at the beginning. They put the little pieces of paper into cakes to communicate with each other. After a long time, Zhu Yuan Zhang and his insurrectionary won the battle, he had become the emperor of China. People keep the tradition of eating moon cakes to remember Zhu Yuan Zhang’s achievement.