Moon Festival

On the 15th of this month is the Moon Festival holiday.  This holiday is celebrated in China and Vietnam and is in honor of the moon which is the most full moon of all year on this date.  Today, in honor of the Moon Festival, there was a celebration at the elementary school.  The students and staff gathered for the telling of the Moon Festival Story, singing performances by staff and students, playing games, and the exchanging and eating of moon cakes.

One of the Kindergarten Students in his lion hat.

Plate full of Moon Cakes.

The international staff singing a Moon song in Vietnamese.

One of the lanterns hanging for the festival.

There are many versions of the Moon Festival Myth that are available.  For some reason, the one that our school chooses to tell has to do with a forbidden tree that no one is allowed to urinate on (I kid you not!).  One night, after drinking a magical elixir, a woman named Cheng Y goes into the forest to use the bathroom.  Of course, the place where she chooses to do her duty is on the forbidden tree.  When her "urination touches the tree's roots, the tree grows up, up, up and carries Cheng Y on it's branches to the moon."  She must live there the rest of her life and misses her family.  Her family offers her up moon cakes every autumn (little dense cakes filled with everything from sweet green bean paste, to minced meat and nuts, to jellied durian with hard boiled eggs) to let her know they are thinking of her and missing her.  Somehow that myth translates into songs, crazy lanterns, and kids running around gobbling up sweet, sweet, sugar filled cakes.  Ah, Vietnamese holidays.