To day is Moon Cakes Festival or Mid-Autumn Festival. The Festival falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month of the Chinese lunisolar calendar (usually around mid- or late-September in the Gregorian Calendar), a date that parallels the Autumn Equinox of the solar calendar. At this time, the moon is at its fullest and brightest, marking an ideal time to celebrate the abundance of the summer's harvest. The traditional food of this festival is the moon cake, of which there are many different varieties.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the two most important holidays in the Chinese calendar (the other being the Chinese Lunar New Year), and is a legal holiday in several countries. Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date. Traditionally, on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomeloes together. It is also common to have barbecues outside under the moon, and to put pomelo rinds on one's head. Brightly lit lanterns are often carried around by children. Together with the celebration, there appear some special customs in different parts of the country, such as burning incense, planting sweet-olive trees, lighting lanterns on towers, and fire dragon dances. Shops selling mooncakes, before the festival, often display pictures of Chang'e, floating to the moon.
*sources: OIA-NCKU
The sad things that we heard that the will be a Typhoon (Sinlaku) approaching Taiwan. It was announced that we should be careful. In fact there was strong wind since last Friday. The school even canceled the Tainan City Tour on Friday because of the Typhoon. So, here we are in the mid of the festival with typhoon.
Today we went to church with Monika, she has her sister come from Taipei. I know that the festival means a lot for Chinese people so they have to celebrate it together with their family. It's rainy all day, even in the church there were not so many people around.
One of our friend that we met in Church invited us to join their celebration. Her name is April Kao with Chinese name is Shu-Fen. She can speak English very well because she stayed for 13 years in Michigan and she is a faculty member of one university in Tainan. She picked us up at 7pm after picked her another friends. We had a very wonderful night although it's rain. We met a new friends who also a student of NCKU. Overall we had plenty of food and we full.
Praise God for bringing a new friend for us. As we never taught before, He works in HIS time. Some time we can not feel or see but believe that He is there working for our good.
(Isaiah 43:19)
