A Mid-Autumn's Tale

It is supposingly mid-autumn festival tomorrow, and the mercury has yet to dip below 24C. The long summer in Hong Kong has no inkling of coming to an end, nor is autumn starting to prevail in this part of the world. The usual festivity mode has yet to take effect, counting by the number of moon-cakes one received this year. Is it because people no longer care about the festival, or is it because people has taken a sudden interest to keep one’s health in proper perspectives, or could it be the financial meltdown that made everyone more selective in who and who truly deserved the moon-cakes! I rest my case, for I have been in Hong Kong long enough to be 'sinolised’ and quite rightly think more a Chinese than a Malaysian.

The Mid-autumn festival is taken very seriously in this part of the world. The Chinese, will celebrate the Mid-autumn over 3 days, giving each day a name to signify its importance. You have ‘welcoming the moon’, ‘ushering the moon’ and lastly, ‘chasing the moon’. 17 years ago, the mid-autumn festival is nothing more than a lantern festival to me whereby you eat moon-cakes in abundance. 17 years later, the festival has taken a separate meaning. Part of it is being with the family, for a reunion dinner, and the other part of it is deciding how to spend the night with your lovely other half (if you have one, that is). Or, quite simply “When the moon is round, families unite.” "Yuè yuán, rén yuán."

I am not too sure if this was my imagination but the moon in Hong Kong is certainly bigger and rounder than the one I have seen in my home country. It is so BIG that you focused on your gaze for more than 5 minutes; you will eventually see Wu Gang chopping the cherry tree. Nah, nothing of that sort, a legend is forever a legend. You heard the story a thousand times, you can’t seriously believe there is Chang’e, the rabbit, and the woodcutter up there, would you? But it is always a nice story to tell despite silly Armstrong planting a flag there for no apparent reason. And yes, the festival does invoke a sense of nostalgia. Gone were the days when children could roam around the streets in the dark with their lanterns and more importantly without the fear of being kidnapped. It was an age of simplicity when a simple lantern is all it takes to give the child a sense of content. These days, kids don’t roam in the dark no more, the roam the net and surf to their heart’s content. Which begs the question, which generation is happier?

I am not going to digress into the importance of this festival; it is indeed a matter of personal judgment. This is the first year my Melody is not celebrating Mid-autumn with her old man. I hope when she sees the London moon today, she will remember her ever lonely dad at home. So, despite our government’s fruitless effort to have a formula 1 team, the incredibly lack of commercial intuition to ‘exchange’ the land in Tanjong Pagar, the yoyo politics and finally the comedies of mis-quotation by some of our ministers….. Yes, I like to celebrate the festival my way. Guess I will sit down to taste the latest edition of moon-cakes…..the bird’s nest version. And perhaps with a tiny tinkle of Lafitte it should go down well. Happy Mid-autumn folks.