Mid-Autumn Festival

We had our first Chinese holiday last weekend.  It was mid-autumn festival and there were quite a lot of things going on.

These pictures I stole from Wikipedia, but they were the same pictures I saw at the kids school.

Tuesday the Mandarin teachers invited parents to come to their class.  A lot of the class was conducted in Chinese, but they told the story of the mid-autumn festival which is all about the moon.  If you, dear reader, are really curious you can look it up on Wikipedia like I had to because I didn't understand the Mandarin from the kids school. I guess in short, it is a harvest festival, but it is based upon the lunar calendar and this year it is still so hot in Guangzhou, it hardly reminds me of a harvest festival.
Our first "celebration" was the Friday before.  Autumn was invited to a little party.  She loved that it was mid AUTUMN.  This mom read stories.

 They colored pictures.  Autumn was in a rush to get to the next station making a moon cake out of play doh and she just scribbled pink all over hers.  I was shocked later when she said something about the story of mid-autumn festival.  I said, "how did you know that?!" She said, "remember my coloring page!"  I didn't even know she'd really looked at it.  I didn't get a picture of the play-doh moon cakes, but it was pretty cool.
These are moon cakes.  They are filled with a lot of different things.  At Autumn's party they then ate real moon cakes.  I only tried one which was filled with a carmel like substance and was through the roof sweet.  Autumn wanted more and that one was gone so I thought I'd play a little trick on her since she'd only had that and the chocolate one and I gave her the one with egg in it.  She didn't even notice.  She gobbled it up too.
Other popular moon cake flavors include red bean paste, lotus seed paste, and vegetable and fruit.  Levin brought one home that had a weird purple gummy filling.  I'm not really a fan.  Levin got a bunch at work that we gave to Jenny.
I remember something that you're supposed to eat your moon cakes in the dark the night of Mid-Autumn festival.

This is a picture from Mandarin class.  The teacher aka "lao shi Bai" had the kids get up in groups of 3 or 4 and sing a song.  They also acted out the story of the festival and played a few games.  I wasn't sure if the kids were really learning much because sometimes it seems like they learn a little tune, but had no idea what number was what, they just kind of new the sounds.  But today Jenny was playing with Brandon and was counting to five with him and Oliver runs over and counted up to twenty in Chinese.  It won't be long now before they are translating for me . . actually that'd be pretty awesome.

After Chinese class we went downstairs to look at all the lanterns with riddles.  I actually thought what Wikipedia said about this was really interesting so I'll post it.

A notable part of celebrating the holiday is the carrying of brightly lit lanterns, lighting lanterns on towers, or floating sky lanterns.^[1] Another tradition involving lanterns is to write riddles on them and have other people try to guess the answers (simplified Chinese: 灯谜; traditional Chinese: 燈謎; pinyin: dēng mí; literally: "lantern riddle").^[10]

It is difficult to discern the original purpose of lanterns in connection to the festival, but it is certain that lanterns were not used in conjunction with moon-worship prior to the Tang Dynasty.^[5]Traditionally, the lantern has been used to symbolize fertility, and functioned mainly as a toy and decoration. But today the lantern has come to symbolize the festival itself.^[5] 

 On Wednesday the three little kids and I walked back to the school for the lantern parade. All the kids made lanterns in art class.  They vary depending upon skill levels for the different ages.  Oliver was so excited for this.  The day of he didn't hold his lantern up to where you could see it until I told him to . . so he did . . after he was almost past me. So this is all I got for pictures.

 Leah was a little more accommodating.  Here she is with a girl I don't know, and our downstairs neighbor, Akshita, who is probably her best friend, but they both have a lot of friends.  I love Akshita because she pops up and down between our apartments after school, but she is relatively quiet, super nice to Lance and Autumn, and well behaved and doesn't ever wear out her welcome.  She does run home scared if there is thunder and I find that pretty adorable.

 Afterwards I took the little kids to eat my kind of moon cakes . . . . muffins from Starbucks.  Our island has pretty much no retail, but right by the school is a Starbucks and I'd been wanting to visit it and this seemed like a good day to do it.  Looking at that blueberry  muffin and iced hot chocolate makes me want to go again.  Yummy!  Much better than bean paste moon cakes, I assure you. I know from experience.

 Oliver's class with their lanterns.

*Just a little "Melissa moment" to share.  I didn't realize until Autumn's little activity was over that it was a play group for members of the Guangzhou Women's International Club . . of which I didn't join.  It costs too much money for a lady with 3 kids at home who can't join many activities.  It was limited to only 10 kids, the first 10 kids who RSVP'd.  My friend had added me to the WeChat group when I first arrived and I never clicked what the group was for until that day when several people didn't live at our apartment complex . . . . oops!  I hope there weren't other kids that wanted to go and missed their chance.  It was an innocent mistake on my part.