Who Wants To Be Mooned?

Just wanted to wish all a happy Mid-Autumn (Moon) Festival, one of the biggest holidays in Chinese culture. I encourage everyone, Chinese or not, to go out on the town and get yourself pasted on some moon-cakes, in celebration of the night of the biggest and brightest full moon of the year.

As reference, please note that there is a very logical explanation behind the celebration of this moon-festival. The main reason is because some woman in ancient times swallowed her husband's special elixir of immortality. This resulted in her becoming some sort of flying fairy. Eventually, she ended up on the moon, fleeing and hiding from her husband, who, as you might imagine, was fairly pissed when he found out.

There are a number of variations or additions to this story, some involving a rabbit that lives on the moon and spends all of his time working with magic "herbs" (snicker snicker). Some say that despite the husband's anger, he still loves her and visits her on the 15th day of the eighth lunar months each year, when they probably "do stuff" that makes the moon look brighter that night. Others claim that this woman who turned into a fairy was apparently very hot. Thus, her beauty must be radiating as the source of the moon's intense glow. There are also rumors that some bad guy scared or tricked the woman into swallowing the immortality elixir, which was meant to be taken together with the husband. From this, disaster struck and now she's on the moon (Yin) and he's on the sun (Yang), and they meet for some Yin-Yang action on this day.

Much like the murders of John F. Kennedy, 2Pac, and Bison Dele, we may never know the entire story. Why the significance of this day? Perhaps the husband misses his lady and he can only see her on the night when the moon is brightest. Or, maybe this was the anniversary of the day she took the elixir and flew away, and she is especially shiny on this day.

As for the moon cakes, they were used by brave rebels during the oppressive Mongolian rule of China to spread word of an uprising that was to take place on this day of the Mid-Autumn festival. Since the dumb Mongolian rulers didn't like to eat these sweet, lovely, glorious snacks that all Chinese people loved, rebels decided to insert their plans into the cakes so that the Chinese peasants would be informed without the Mongolian leaders knowing. Finally, on the day of the Moon Festival, the Chinese people rose up and gave those Mongolian fools a well-deserved beatdown. Serves them right for not appreciating how awesome these cakes are. Since that year, Chinese people honor these rebels by eating all the moon-cakes we can handle. The End.

So now you know all about it. If you're like me, you will spend this night kicking back with moon-cakes galore in honor of the uprising against the Mongols in 1368 A.D., while staring at the moon and looking to get a glimpse of the hot chick that lives there with her pet rabbit.