moon watching

the moon festival, or the mid-autumn festival, is a celebration of the year's fullest and roundest moon. there are many chinese folktales that explain chang'e's rise to the moon, but my favorite so far goes something like this: chang'e was a beautiful woman married to an archer named houyi. at that time, the earth had 10 suns, which caused people great suffering. houyi did what any great archer would do-- he shot down 9 of the suns, and as a reward from the gods, received special medicine granting immortality. one of his archer apprentices was jealous and tried to steal the medicine. chang'e would not have that, so she ate it herself-- and immediately, her earthly body began to float away. not wanting to be separated from houyi, she stopped at the nearest celestial body, the moon. and that is where she has stayed ever since, with a medicine-making lunar jade rabbit for company. tragic and romantic... and a great reason to look at the full moon while eating mooncakes.

as a NASA side note, in 2007, china's first lunar probe was named for chang-e. also, our moon lady was mentioned in a conversation between houston & apollo 11 just before the first moon landing in 1969:

HOUSTON: Among the large headlines concerning Apollo this morning, there's one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit. An ancient legend says a beautiful Chinese girl called Chang-o has been living there for 4000 years. It seems she was banished to the moon because she stole the pill for immortality from her husband. You might also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit, who is easy to spot since he is only standing on his hind feet in the shade of a cinnamon tree.

CREW: Okay, we'll keep a close eye for the bunny girl.

in taiwan, the moon festival celebration resembles american 4th of july festivities. family reunions, barbecue, and fireworks! my moon festival weekend started friday morning, with an all-school english lesson (every friday at 8 a.m.). all-star student vicky and i presented a short skit to the school, teaching key moon festival words like "mooncake" (little cakes with tasty fillings, especially the more modern ones), "pomelo" (another traditional festival food), "barbecue," and best of all, "firecracker." for me, the highlight of the skit came when the dean of students unexpectedly LIT the firecracker and passed it off to me in front of the entire student body!! i had a minor fit of extreme joy mixed with sheer terror, and then realized that it was a relatively safe sparkler.

the taiwanese "kao rou"/barbecue tradition is fantastic and only slightly different from u.s.a.-style bbq. first, you need an old tire rim filled with hunks of charcoal. then you need fire, and something to stoke the fire-- in our case, an electric fan, followed by a hair dryer, followed by a blowtorch ("why are you laughing, eileen?"). you can put food on a wire rack (left), but a big stone slate cooks better (right). then comes the food-- and what a range. thin-sliced pork and beef, marinated chicken, mushrooms, peppers, squid, fresh oysters, taiwanese pancakes, sausages, all brushed with phenomenal korean bbq sauce. eaten with squares of white bread, heated on the grill and brushed with more of that sauce. as a great epicurean once said, "aw yeah, dude."

of course, no moon festival celebration would be complete without firecrackers. they'd been exploding around town all week, but on friday, things really started to heat up. explosions were everywhere, and mr. chung was gung-ho about finding their point of origin after school on friday. we rode his scooter around town until we found a small road carpeted in red firecracker debris and the firecracker truck (left). on the night of the moon festival, saturday, my taiwanese brother jun arrived at the barbecue with an armload of pyrotechnics. tuo, my taiwanese sister yen's boyfriend, had his own special way of paying tribute to moon goddess chang'e (right).

*happy moon festival, everyone!*

photos: chang'e & houyi; moon festival skit-- backdrop is an edward chung original; gaoshu barbecue; firecrackers for chang'e & the earth god (saturday was coincidentally his birthday! happy birthday, earth god*)