Are the Mid-Autumn Festival traditions still important today? How can they help Hong Kong?
How did the Mid-Autumn Festival come about?
With the Mid-Autumn Festival just around the corner, it is important to remember not only what happens during the festival, but its cultural significance and origin.
The reason we celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival today is to pay homage to Chang’e, the Chinese goddess of the moon. According to Chinese legend, Chang’e was the beautiful wife of the archer Hou Yi, who shot down nine of the ten suns in the sky that threatened humanity with a devastating drought. For his bravery, he was awarded with an elixir of immortality, and let Chang’e safeguard it for him while hunting. However, she drank it herself and was forever bound to the moon – leaving Hou Yi, out of guilt, to try and entice her back with various fruits and cakes she had enjoyed as a mortal.
The Mid-Autumn Festival’s Benefits to Modern Society
Many restaurants and small food-based shops profit heavily from the celebration of food during the Mid-Autumn Festival, and foreign brands are no exception. For one, KFC has announced that they will be selling lotus seed paste Portuguese egg tarts, a fresh take on the tradition. Other culinary businesses have followed suit, with mooncakes containing purple sweet potato mochi, or even beef wellington.
Why should we care about the Mid-Autumn Festival?
Though Hong Kong as a whole commonly celebrates Mid Autumn Festival by eating mooncakes and lighting lanterns, different villages are also known to have their own unique customs. One of these is a festival called Pok San Ngau Tsa, which takes place in Sha Po and includes a percussion-accompanied performance resembling spirit possession and intense physical feats. Sadly, many of these village-specific celebrations were lost during the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, and afterwards, when scores of rural Hongkongers relocated to urban areas for better financial prospects.
It’s important to keep these specific traditions alive because they contribute to Hong Kong’s intangible cultural heritage that serves to not only attract revenue through tourism, but more importantly, build stronger communal ties through a shared collective memory.
Sources:
Written By : Kayla Adara Lee
Edited By : Isaac Chow
Graphics By : Ashley Kwok
Comments