Autumn Moon Festival

The Chinese Mid-Autumn Moon Festival or “Zhōng Qiū Jié” is one of China’s most important festivals, and a special time for families to get together to give thanks for a good rice harvest. It is similar to our Thanksgiving Day in Canada. In ancient China, emperors would make offerings and sacrifices to the sun in spring and to the moon in autumn. Today at Sunway, we celebrated by making lanterns and moon cakes!

Here is one version of the legend:

A long time ago in China there were ten suns in the sky. Because of this it was very hot! The blazing suns dried up the rivers and there was a serious drought. People were running out of water to drink and the crops in the rice fields were withering. A famous archer, Hòu yì, was summoned to shoot down 9 of the suns in the sky. He did it successfully and was rewarded a “pill of the immortality.” Hòu yì went home and gave the precious pill to his wife, Cháng’é, for safekeeping. A visitor of the archer’s, however, heard about this pill and wanted to steal it from his wife. As the visitor was about to steal the pill from her Cháng é swallowed it.  After she took the pill Cháng é felt lighter and lighter.  Then she started to float. She flew all the way to the moon. When Cháng é got to the moon she coughed up the pill and the pill became a rabbit. The rabbit was the only companion Cháng é- the Moon Fairy had on the moon and is named the “Jade Rabbit.”