ohwanderlin

The Moon festival is coming soon, by this time 80% of Taiwanese are stuffing themselves with all types of moon cakes already😅
Like our Chinese New Year, the moon festival is a festival that brings family members together.
Are you ready to join us and see how we celebrate the moon festival in Taiwan?

See also: [Celebrate with us in Taiwan] Chinese New year | Dragon Boat Festival | Lantern Festival [Chinese culture] Taboos about gifts | How we express Love | Face mask Culture

Which countries celebrate the moon festival

Taiwan, Hongkong, Macau, China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, and those ethnic Chinese in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore.

When is the Moon Festival

Like all other traditional Chinese festivals, the moon festival follows the Lunar Calender and is on the 15th of August.

Moon festival 2023: 29th of September

How do we celebrate the moon festival in Taiwan?

Moon cakes

How can I not put this in the first place!

Moon cake is not just a traditional snack that you enjoy with your family and observe the moon, since this is one of the most important festivals in our culture, all company’s PR or sales representatives will prepare numerous mooncake gift boxes and present them to their business partners.

While I was in Taiwan, one of the happiest moments throughout the years in the office is the month of the moon festival=unlimited moon cakes all you can eat🤤

Barbeque

Of course, this tradition didn’t come from our great ancestors (imagine them creating those poems about the moon in our textbooks while barbequing…😂).

In fact, only Taiwanese will relate barbeque with the moon festival. Some of my friends had 3 or 4 barbeque parties within these 2 weeks!

Thanks to our soy sauce companies, they showed how successful advertisements can be.

There were years when barbeque kits weren’t selling well, and with two local soy sauce companies promoting their new barbeque sauce and competing with each other’s advertising abilities …so, the spark consisted of 2 industries, 3 establishments that wanted to promote themselves so badly resulted into today’s barbeque tradition during the moon festival. (I hope you understand me)

Years ago, you could see the spectacular scenery in the whole country that every household is sitting in front of their house barbequing, the smell of barbeque would haunt you anywhere you go on the island. See it here
Nowadays in the city, police are more strict with barbequing. So it would be much harder to experience this “traditional atmosphere” in bigger cities.

Eat Pomelo

Moon festival also means the season of Pomelo. So there is also a tradition of eating them during the moon festival. Anyway, it’s always a good idea to eat some fruit after all those barbeques💁🏻‍♀️
Moreover, we like to put the skin of Pomelo on our heads😂(children mostly, of course), I’ve done that💁🏻‍♀️
See some examples here👈🏻

Moon viewing

Since the whole family is together and you are all outdoors barbequing, and there is a full moon…🤷🏻‍♀️why not?
Legend has it that on the moon…there is a woman…👇🏻story below

---

Things to do in Taiwan

---

The legend about the moon festival

The most famous story about the moon festival is the story of Chang’e and Houyi.

Once upon a time, one day the ruler of heaven (the Jade Emperor)’s 10 sons(=suns) decided to go to the earth and have fun. They went to the earth in the form of the sun and hang out there for several days.

So you can imagine that it meant several days with 10 suns in the sky without pause. Moreover, in our agricultural society, we work during the daylight and rest when the sun goes down, but on those days the sun never rests, nor could the people. Crops were dying because of the heat, animals were suffering, everything was burning…

Our legendary marksman-Houyi saw how people were suffering so he took his arrow and shot down 9 suns and left 1 to bring warmth to the earth.

The Queen Mother of the West was grateful for what he did and gave him the elixir of immortality.

Finally, here comes Chang’e-the wife of Houyi. She took the elixir herself and felt lighter and lighter and finally ascended onto the moon, being separated forever from Houyi.

Of course, there are different types of saying about why Chang’e took the elixir, some said she didn’t know what it was, some said she knew and she was jealous of Houyi, how could he be immortal and not her.

No matter why she took the pill, some still think that when you look at the moon, you could see a lonely woman’s shadow up there.

---

Enjoyed this post? Feel free to comment below and tell me which moon cake you love the most😝

Chinese Dining Etiquettes You Need To Know!

Get it before you join your ethnic Chinese friend’s gathering!

Send it my way!

Built with ConvertKit

Find this post useful? Support this blog via making your bookings via below links

Check out latest flight deals

Book your hotel

Booking.com
Agoda
Tripadvisor

Things to do