Dumpling Sister's Thoughts on Life
10.6.2006 Topic: Mid Autumn (Chinese Version)
This past weekend I drove up from Houston to Austin at night, thinking that this is such a long drive. I had my head against the car window, which was kind of cool, like Jay Chou with his role in Initial D when he was driving up the mountain road in the early mourning. With nothing in front of me, no McDonalds or anything, and I don't see any motels or gas stations behind me. I am the only driver on the road, trying to beat the clock.
The only thing that knows of my existence would be the moon.
It is always the case that a time such as this that I noticed how bright the moon light is. Then I would started thinking how did the ancients work around the night as their source of lighting is limited? How fortunate are we? We don't have to drill a hole on the wall shared by our neighbors to get light, nor do we have to catch a tons of the fireflies.
The moon was behind the clouds yet it was still very bright. It has been such for the past thousands of years, and it will continue to be so for the thousands of years ahead. She has been there to witness the nostalgias of those who left their home towns, with plenty of literature, many chose to use moon to express their home sickness and the people they left behind, let it be the ancient times where transportation was difficult, or the internet era of now, it is all the same.
In US this day is just as normal as it can be, but comfort comes when the thought arises of the fact the people on the other side of the Pacific are also looking the moon. One can hope all is well.
The popularity of the moon cake is not what it was intended for thousands of years ago, it was used for military trick that people slipped a piece of paper with the cake wrapped around it to provide battle status. Nowadays it is more about packaging, however, a the mid autumn without moon cake is also incomplete.
Just like hand written letters are both slow and troublesome, but emailing would have been faster, yet when one receives the letters the sentiment is beyond words.
A friend of mine offered me some five-seeds moon cakes. I have to say, it took alot of effort in chewing it down because of all the seeds. Yet I was thinking the moon cakes that I had before when I was little, those that had red ink on them, and the filling was made of meat and mung bean paste. The elderly would take a big knife that has been sharpened many times and cut it up in four pieces. That was the time before I knew anything but the sweetness of the mung bean paste.
For me, the moon cake becomes the medium that relates to the past, or in Chinese, like the flying pigeon. Flying pigeon is like the flying owls for carry letters like they do in Harry Potter books.