The Moon Herself: showing up as you are

17th September 2024. We gathered in the dimming glow of the setting sun, and - illuminated by flickering lamps and homemade lanterns - patiently waited for an altogether different light…

‘Celebrations’ have always been events of conflict for me. Birthdays and anniversaries serve as reminders of impermanence. Nuptials are remnants of outdated church values turned capitalist propaganda of the wedding industrial complex. Christmas is pure misery. I know, I know, who asked the Grinch to write this article? But there are celebrations that are timeless and celestial, which allow their guests to show up exactly as they are. The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival is exactly that. 

At Mid-Autumn, the special guest is not a bridezilla or a newborn nor a fictional fat man in a red suit - it is the Moon herself. A celebration that dates back at least three millennia, Mid-Autumn’s date changes every year to coincide with the full harvest moon. Therefore it is as much a harvest celebration as it is a lunar one. The fullness of the moon is thus intrinsically linked to practices of gratitude for abundance. 

At Mid-Autumn, it is typical for Chinese people to gather with family and friends outside, admiring the full moon. Tea is poured and fruit and snacks are laid out. My childhood memories are of playing in our garden with brightly coloured paper lanterns, listening to uncles droning on about the legend of the Lunar Goddess Chang’E, and dancing in the autumnal evening breeze well past my bedtime.

There is no person-centric hierarchy when celebrating Mid-Autumn. No dress code, no guestlist, no seating plan. Under the star-studded sky, there is room for all to attend. The feted one has neither expectations nor demands of her guests. In fact, she herself may not show up; she is the bride with a disregard for vows. It’s a little ironic that for one night of the year, we choose to be enthralled by this planetary-sized rock, even if it orbits the Earth every 27 days and can be spotted on most evenings. It is only with such human hubris that we project our own expectations onto divine planetary movements. Or, is it faith? That, for me, is the magic of Mid-Autumn. In celebrating the festival, everyone is required to turn up with implicit surrender to the chance that the Moon may… or may not… show her face. 

Other Chinese festivals, like Lunar New Year, do not shimmer with the same lustre as Mid-Autumn. Corporations cash in on Lunar New Year while masking it as DE&I activations, even if its fundamental values are no different to the Harvest Festival. Look at LNY as the vernal antipode of Mid-Autumn, if you will: it’s about spending time with your beloved ones - this time during the new moon - and welcoming the Spring. But since the auspicious, cash-filled red packet (typically handed out to children or newlyweds) has come to replace the true meaning of LNY, the celebration has fallen victim to commodification. Now, LNY is just a stream of adverts for zodiac-themed trinkets, tasting menus, shopping discounts and limited edition sneakers.

Of course, there are many festive Chinese celebrations where a red packet of money will suffice, indeed, is the correct gift to give. Money is useful, practical, won’t sit unused taking up an awkward amount of space in the attic. But at Mid-Autumn, there is only one gift to give: mooncakes. We give each other mooncakes in all flavours, whether old-fashioned baked pastries - densely packed with lotus paste and salted egg yolks - or the more modern snowskin inventions, filled with anything from crushed Oreos to durian. Make no mistake; the global mooncake industry is huge, weighing in this year at an estimated 20 billion yuan (USD2.8 billion) in China alone (SCMP).

But Mid-Autumn has evaded Western media, FMCG and hospitality industries, largely (I suspect) because they don’t quite know how to sell it. Mooncakes are still a very acquired (i.e. Chinese) taste. So if these corporations can’t capitalise on a culture’s food, they certainly can’t capitalise on a moon gazing event where the guest may or may not appear. The point I never see being made is that when you get the hang of Chinese gift-giving, it’s an actual relief. These culturally appropriate rules of gift exchange remove both ego and anxiety from the act itself, transferring the importance to the intentionality behind gifting - one of showing respect, thoughtfulness and maintaining ‘face’. 

More than anything, Mid-Autumn has taught me how to celebrate. I cherish it because its outcome can’t be planned or predicted; therefore it can’t be taken away from us. Its truest essence can only be found in the quiet laughter in a back garden, the flame-cast shapes thrown onto a farmers’ face in a pitch black field, or a child’s hopeful gaze beyond a window. Mid-Autumn resists commodification because you can’t package the beautiful, bright, smiling Moon. For as long as I am able to, I will go outside every autumn to greet the Harvest Moon and celebrate her in her fullness.

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Read Jenny’s poetic capsule of 2024 Mid-Autumn, which is contextual and a grounding of the season.

Jenny Lau founded Celestial Peach in 2018 as a multidisciplinary platform to tell and connect stories about the Chinese diaspora. She has since built a grassroots East and South East Asian community through her food events and activism, and has been featured in media such as Gastro Obscura, It's Nice That and Monocle. She has twice been listed as one of Code Hospitality's 100 Most Influential Women in Hospitality and was nominated for People's Choice Person of the Year at the Be Inclusive Hospitality Spotlight Awards in 2022.

Her food and culture articles have been published in Vittles and South China Morning Post, and her chapter on 'The Community Centre' was published in London Feeds Itself, the food writing anthology - currently on its second edition - that Jonathan Nunn edited, alongside voices such as Claudia Roden, Ruby Tandoh and Jeremy Corbyn. She has done talks for the British Library Food Season, lectured at SOAS Food Studies department, taken part in panels and events with BFI, MilkTeaFilms and Southbank Centre, as well as a writing collaboration with the Horniman Museum. She lives in London.

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