Harvest Moon Festival

"When the moon is full, mankind is one!"
http://www.chiff.com/home_life/holiday/harvest-moon-festival.htm

Moon or Lantern Festival

In China and throughout many Asian countries people celebrate the Harvest Moon on the 15th day of the eighth month of their lunar calendar. The date in the Western calendar changes yearly. This year, it falls on September 14, 2008.

The Harvest Moon or Mid-Autumn Festival (Zhong Qiu Jie) is a day of family reunions much like a Western Thanksgiving. Chinese people believe that on that day, the moon is the roundest and brightest signaling a time of completeness and abundance. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, children are delighted to stay up past midnight, parading multi-colored lanterns into the wee hours as families take to the streets to moon-gaze.

It is also a romantic night for lovers, who sit holding hands on hilltops, riverbanks and park benches, captivated by the brightest moon of the year!

The festival dates back to the Tang dynasty in 618 A.D., and as with many celebrations in China there are ancient legends closely associated with it.

In Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, it's sometimes referred to as the Lantern Festival, (not to be confused with a similar celebration during the Chinese New Year), but whatever name it goes by, the centuries-old festival remains a beloved annual ritual celebrating an abundance of food and family.

Mid-Autumn Foods & Festivities

Traditional foods for a Chinese Mid-Autumn feast are red — for good luck. Lobster and salmon are particular favorites along with apples, pomegranates, roasted peanuts, pomelo, chestnuts, fatt koh (sponge cakes) and moon cakes.

Similar harvest festivals with their own unique traditions also occur during the same time - in Korea during the three-day Chusok or Chu Suk festival; in Vietnam during Tet Trung Thu; and in Japan at the Tsukimi festival.

On the Web, learn more about Harvest Moon festival celebrations in the U.S. and around the world and discover a rich source of food and recipes of the season, festive e-mail greetings, along with the colorful folklore, stories, music, poems and legends associated with the Mid-Autumn Harvest Moon Festival...

Moon
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4850

Moon Festival

Stories
Round is a Mooncake: A Book of Shapes (Hardcover)
by Roseanne Thong (Author), Grace Lin (Illustrator)

The runaway rice cake
by Ying Chang Compestine ; pictures by Tungwai Chau.

Stories of the moon festival
http://www.chinatown.com.au/eng/article.asp?masterid=155&articleid=736

Make your own Chinese lantern
Materials:
colored paper
string or pipe cleaners work too
markers, crayons, or paints
decorating things, like stickers or glitter
scissors
tape
a hole punch or a sharp pencil
Glow stick

Directions:

1. Take a sheet of colored paper. Draw small shapes, like stars, moons or circles on it. Make any shapes you like. Remember, the big piece of paper is the important one, not the shapes. Push the scissors through the middle of a shape and then cut it out.
Remember, just cut out the shapes. Don't cut anyplace else on the big paper.

2. Decorate the piece of paper with pictures or writing. Draw or write on the paper to decorate it. You can also glue things to the paper to make it pretty.

3. Get the tape. Roll the piece of paper to make a tube. Don't make it too tight.
Make sure that your decorations are on the outside to that everyone can see them.
Tape the ends of the paper to each other to make the tube.

4. Get the hole-punch and the string or pipe cleaner. Punch four holes at the top of the tube. Cut four pieces of string as long as the tube. Tie one piece of string to each hole. Tie the four strings together. Cut another piece of string and tie it to the other strings so you can hang up the lantern. (Another fun thing to do is put a glow stick inside your lantern. You could hang it from the handle or a string.)

5. If you know any riddles, write one on a piece of paper. Tape it to your lantern.
Let your friends try to guess the answer. If you have some candy, you can give a piece to the friend who solves your riddle!

Moon Festival Mooncakes for Kids (This is not a traditional recipe but if you don't have lotus seed paste or rice flour it's another option)
by the Editors of Publications International, Ltd.
http://home.howstuffworks.com/moon-festival-craft.htm

Each fall, the Chinese Moon Festival honors the moon and harvest, and families can join in the fun by creating a yummy Moon Festival craft -- mooncakes.
Make mooncakes to share sweetness and good luck!
THESE ARE NOT AUTHENTIC if you want a more authentic recipe use the second one
What You'll Need:
For the mooncakes:
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
Jelly or jam
Chopped nuts
Raisins or sesame seeds (optional)

Materials:
Mixing bowl
Measuring cups and spoons
Aluminum foil
Cookie sheet
Mixing spoon
Cooling racks
Spatula

The Moon Festival is celebrated in China in September when the moon is full. The holiday, a tribute to the moon, is also a time to celebrate the harvest.

Mooncakes are a traditional part of the festivities, which are believed by some to honor the moon's birthday.

To make mooncakes, first wash your hands. Then mix the butter, sugar, and egg yolk. Stir until the mixture is creamy. Add the flour and salt to the mixture. Stir thoroughly.

Form the dough into a ball. Wrap the ball in foil, and refrigerate it for 30 minutes. After the dough has chilled, wash your hands and unwrap the foil.

Break off small pieces and form them into mooncakes by rolling small balls (moons).

Make a hole in the middle of each mooncake using your finger or thumb. Put a teaspoon of jelly or jam into each hole. (You can also add chopped nuts, raisins, or sesame seeds.)

Have an adult help you bake the mooncakes in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. Then let the mooncakes cool on racks.

Share the mooncakes with a friend to bring good luck.

MOON CAKE more traditional

PART A:

2 c. all-purpose flour
4 tbsp. Crisco
8 tbsp. water
1/2 c. sugar
1/3 tsp. salt

PART B:

1 c. all-purpose flour
4 tbsp. Crisco

FILLING (BEAN PASTE) :

2 c. beans, cooked and mashed
3/4 c. sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out Part A; spread Part B over Part A. Roll as cinnamon roll, wrap up from one end and flatten with rolling pin. Roll and stand on end, flatten again with rolling pin. Roll up and slice into 20 pieces.

Flatten into rounds with thumb and fingers, place some filling in center and fold all sides under to seal. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and brush tops with lightly beaten egg yolk. Bake for 20 minutes and remove to cooling rack. Tops may be decorated by using the blunt end of a chop-stick dipped in red food dye. Makes 20 moon-cakes.

Mooncakes were used as a medium by the Ming revolutionaries in their espionage effort to secretly distribute letters in order to overthrow the Mongolian rulers of China in the Yuan dynasty. The idea is said to be conceived by Zhu Yuanzhang (朱元璋) and his advisor Liu Bowen (劉伯溫), who circulated a rumor that a deadly plague was spreading and the only way to prevent it was to eat the special mooncakes. This prompted the quick distribution of the mooncakes, which were used to hide a secret message coordinating the Han Chinese revolt on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month.[2]

Another method of hiding the message was printed in the surface of mooncakes as a simple puzzle or mosaic. In order to read the encrypted message, each of the 4 mooncakes packaged together must be cut into 4 parts each. The 16 pieces of mooncake, must then be pieced together in such a fashion that the secret messages can be read. The pieces of mooncake are then eaten to destroy the message.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_cake