Mooncakes

 Mooncake Day. Also known as Mid-Autumn Festival, this is the day when millions of Chinese celebrate something relatively important (one day off important at least) by buying millions of mooncakes and giving them to millions of other people. It's like a great mooncake-swap. This article compares the dense sweets to the maligned and under-appreciated fruitcake - except the fruit cake phenomenon pales in comparison to mooncakes. And, I have never received a fruitcake as a gift, let alone 19.


Two months and a series of stomach aches later, I am only half way through my box. Others have brought their mooncakes in to work and put them out next to the coffee, hoping that someone would accidentally open one up and eat it without realizing what was being done, or that someone, having forgotten his lunch, would have no other recourse than to consume one of the decadent moon-pucks to stave off hunger for the afternoon.

Thankfully, I believe a very kind-hearted person began to surreptitiously place them gently into the garbage, so that after a few weeks their numbers began to dwindle. One colleague gave her box of mooncakes to some migrant workers who are working on a construction project near school, and live across the street in ramshackle housing and tents. As well-meaning and generous as this was, I will do no such thing with mine. I firmly believe that giving away one's mooncakes is nothing short of cheating. I will not give up. I will eat them all.

Around this same time was teacher appreciation day, where we were given a large bag of rice, two liters of peanut oil, and a few dozen eggs. Fried rice anyone?