Moon festival build up

One of the blog's loyal readers has asked me about the Moon festival or Mid-autumn festival, as it is also known. The date is set by the lunar calendar, and no one seems to be able to tell me whether is the 25th or 26th of the month, but in fact the festivities seem to be ongoing. First of all, we have the display of moon cake gift boxes at my local supermarket -- which in the true capitalist spirit -- have been up since we arrived in Xiamen. People buy gift boxes of moon cakes for family, friends, business associates, etc., like this one:


The cakes are round like the full moon and filled with various fillings. I have to confess, as much as I like most new foods, especially sweets -- I just don't care for the texture of the filling, which is kind of mealy, though sweet.. Of course I am not sure if the ones we bought to try were "good ones" or not. There is a religious/ mythological basis for this festival -- involving giving thanks to the Moon Goddess, who saved people from a tyrannical ruler. Generally the festival is celebrated by a meal with family and maybe a moonlit stroll in a park. However, in Xiamen, the moon has all but disappeared form the festival -- in favor of a mid autumn festival custom unique only to southern Fujian province..gambling with dice. This afternoon I was invited to join a group of female foreign teachers who were invited to the Women's Federation of Xiamen Mid -Autumn party. A lot of prominent women in Xiamen from different fields were apparently there. I enjoyed meeting the teachers at our table -- some have been here 2 or 3 years, others have just arrived, and they are from all different countries : Germany, Lebanon, Canada, Australia, and the US, even one woman who was born in Buffalo! After dim sum and fruit and a long exercise demonstration that was the main entertainment, the tables were quickly cleared to make way for the prizes and the gambling began..and it was a serious business, with assorted prizes large and small. Here we are just getting under way:

Love the dice decorations??

How to play - with 6 dice, and the goal is to get fours, or four or five of a kind, or a run of 1-6. the prizes are designated for the different combinations. Like all newcomers, I had quite a bit of luck, and walked away with the big prize -- a set of the five friendlies (Olympic mascots), as well as an assortment of other small things. One was face whitening cream -- after a few laughs with the group I gave it to one of the Chinese women -- because amazingly they actually use it -- its very popular. One of the teachers, the one from Buffalo, is an African American woman and she and I had an interesting talk about what it has been like for her as a black woman in China, and we talked a little about my reactions to all the people coming up and touching Sophia and taking pictures everywhere she goes. She was clear that there have been a lot of difficulties feeling accepted and taken seriously. She had a lot of insights but we didn't have a very long time to talk so we exchanged phone numbers.

When I got home -- everyone was glad to see me. Here is Sophia with my winnings --

We are going to another party on Thursday with the kids -- hope our luck holds. There are bowls with dice all over the place and if you are shopping in a store -- you can stop and throw a few and maybe get a coupon or something if you win.

By the way, some readers of the blog asked me about what the Chinese eat for breakfast -- I think there is a wide variety of choices. There is a lot of yogurt and hot and cold cereals, also pastries in the stores. A traditional breakfast is steamed buns and maybe some fried noodles. We can and do buy milk here, mostly the ultra pasteurized kind that we used to take camping in the US (like Parmalat) but a few stores have fresh milk. And really there are a lot of food choices in the stores and almost everything can be bought here -- only it might look or taste slightly different. One exception is Mexican food -- haven't seen many tortilla chips! Western food items are quite expensive, but everything else is cheap. And while we do go out to restaurants, including the ones on campus, we have not yet eaten in the cafeteria for the students. We cook most nights because with a 2 year old its easier! I would like to vary the stir fry routine with some better tasting sauces and dishes, but hard to experiment because I can't read most of the labels!