UNDER THE MOON FESTIVAL
October 5th 2009 08:21
I’d never heard about the Moon Festival until Saturday night, when I was invited over to a person’s house to eat mooncakes and stare at the moon. According to the most reliable source of information in the world, Wikipedia, the Mid-Autumn Festival, or the Moon Festival, or the Zhongqiu Festival, or the Zhongqiujie Festival, or the Lantern Festival, or the Mooncake Festival, is “a popular harvest festival celebrated by Chinese people and Vietnamese people (even though they celebrate it differently), dating back over 3,000 years to moon worship in China's Shang Dynasty.” It is held when the moon is supposedly its fullest and roundest.
I was with Melanie, who, for some strange reason, was incredibly interested in the event. She bought us both these expensive mooncakes from Sunnybank and when we went outside to stare at the full moon, she stopped talking completely. She merely looked up, smiling.
I wanted to light a sparkler but Melanie wouldn’t let me. So instead I ate my mooncake, which actually tasted quite nice. It consisted of egg and nut and something else.
“You have to taste this,” I said. “It’s the shit.”
She ignored me. She was hypnotised. Her hand was quivering a little. I looked at the moon. It was round, fat, white, distant. I suddenly remembered the nights when I’d be driving home alone and the moon would be yellow and daunting, and it would look like a giant ball of yolk just about to dip itself on the city.
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Comment by Lily
Ars Poetica
i LOVED this part, i read it first as 'drip', which i like better than dip, yolks drip, or are dipped into.. twobobsworth
no sparklers allowed? what? NEVER!!
~lily
Comment by Lara M
Love Speaks
Food Slate