The Moon

I got done with Taiji today and took off to… well to hide. On my way to hide, I stopped at a restaurant. As I sat down, I looked up and saw an incredibly bright moon against a blue sky.

The moon. It seems brighter in the Middle Kingdom.

As I waited for my food, I pondered the moon and its importance in Chinese cultural and mythology. There are all sorts of myths about the moon and people hiding in it and all these cool things. The moon itself, however, is important within the culture.

Each September or early October, Mid-Autumn Festival is celebrated. There are this sort of not good tasting things called mooncakes and in Xiamen there is some cool dice games. The roots of the festival have to do with harvest times and all that, kind of like Thanksgiving. But another meaning is the moon.

Mid Autumn Festival always falls on the full moon. There is a poem I have written down somewhere that has to do with it, but basically it is that the moon looks the same anywhere you are on the earth. We had to memorize a Chinese poem, one of the more famous ones in China, which has to do with the moon and missing your home.

When asked about the importance of Mid-Autumn, many Chinese told me that today they just remember their families if they cannot be with them during it. They often would say that they would look at the moon and dream of home. The idea is that that same moon is seen at home.

So, as I ate my food, I starred at the moon, which did seem bright, and ponder of home.

Perhaps it is fitting on the eve of Thanksgiving.