The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival

Today, Monday September 12th, is the Mid-Autumn Festival. Many businesses are closed and Heinz has the day off. Here is a description of the background of the holiday, taken from Wikipedia {with editorial comments by me added in brackets, in italics}:

The Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節), also known as the Moon Festival is a popular harvest festival celebrated by Chinese, Taiwanese, and Vietnamese people. Dating back over 3,000 years to moon worship in China's Shang Dynasty, it was first called Zhongqiu Jie (literally "Mid-Autumn Festival") in the Zhou Dynasty. In Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, it is also sometimes referred to as the Lantern Festival or Mooncake Festival.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which is in September or early October in the Gregorian calendar. It is a date that parallels the autumnal equinox of the solar calendar, when the moon is at its fullest and roundest. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are many different varieties. The Chinese festival is very traditional and a great way to celebrate.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the few most important holidays in the Chinese calendar. Farmers celebrate the end of the fall harvesting season on this date. Traditionally on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes under the moon together.

Celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival is strongly associated with the legend of Houyi and Chang’e, the Moon Goddess of Immortality. Tradition places these two figures from Chinese mythology at around 2200 BCE, during the reign of the legendary Emperor Yao, shortly after that of Huangdi. Unlike many lunar deities in other cultures who personify the moon, Chang'e simply lives on the moon but is not the moon per se. Shops selling moon cakes before the festival often display pictures of Chang’e floating to the moon.

{Best I can understand, Houyi and Chang’e are immortals who get on the bad side of the Gods, are banished from Heaven, try to reclaim their immortality through the Elixir of Life (in some versions of the legends this is where the Jade Rabbit comes in, helping Chang'e) and Chang’e ends up stuck between Heaven and Earth, on the Moon . The descriptions of the legend that I have found are rambling, incredible, have so many variants and are quite simply not terribly interesting enough to warrant inclusion here…}

The Hare or The Jade Rabbit {have you ever noticed “the bunny in the moon”?}   According to tradition, the Jade Rabbit pounds the Elixir, together with the lady, Chang'e, for the gods. Others say that the Jade Rabbit is a shape, assumed by Chang'e herself. The dark areas to the top of the full moon may be construed as the figure of a rabbit. The animal's ears point to the upper right, while at the left are two large circular areas, representing its head and body. In Chinese folklore, it is often portrayed as a companion of Chang'e, constantly pounding the elixir of life for her.


Overthrow of Mongol rule    According to a widespread folk tale (not necessarily supported by historical records), the Mid-Autumn Festival commemorates an uprising in China against the Mongol rulers of the Yuan Dynasty (1280–1368) in the 14th century. As group gatherings were banned, it was impossible to make plans for a rebellion. Noting that the Mongols did not eat mooncakes, Liu Bowen (劉伯溫) of Zhejiang Province, advisor to the Chinese rebel leader Zhu Yuanzhang, came up with the idea of timing the rebellion to coincide with the Mid-Autumn Festival. He sought permission to distribute thousands of moon cakes to the Chinese residents in the city to bless the longevity of the Mongol emperor. Inside each cake, however, was inserted a piece of paper with the message: "Kill the Mongols on the 15th day of the 8th month". On the night of the Moon Festival, the rebels successfully attacked and overthrew the government. What followed was the establishment of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), under Zhu. Henceforth, the Mid-Autumn Festival was celebrated with moon cakes on a national level.


Mooncake (月饼; yuè bĭng) Typical mooncakes are round or rectangular pastries, measuring about 10 cm in diameter and 4–5 cm thick. A thick filling usually made from lotus seed paste is surrounded by a relatively thin (2–3 mm) crust and may contain yolks from salted duck eggs. Mooncakes are usually eaten in small wedges accompanied by Chinese tea. Today, it is customary for businessmen and families to present them to their clients or relatives as presents, helping to fuel a demand for high-end mooncake styles. Mooncake energy content can vary with the filling and size; the average moon cake carries 800 to 1200 kcal, mainly from fats and sugar. {Oh my!!!}

• Lotus seed paste (蓮蓉, lían róng): Considered by some to be the original and most luxurious mooncake filling, lotus paste filling is found in all types of mooncakes. Due to the high price of lotus paste, white kidney bean paste is sometimes used as a filler.
• Sweet bean paste (豆沙, dòu shā): A number of pastes are common fillings found in Chinese desserts. Although red bean paste, made from azuki beans, is the most common worldwide, there are regional and original preferences for bean paste made from mung beans, as well as black beans, known throughout history.
• Jujube paste (棗泥, zǎo ní): A sweet paste is made from the ripe fruits of the jujube (date) plant. The paste is dark red in color, a little fruity/smoky in flavor, and slightly sour in taste. Depending on the quality of the paste, jujube paste may be confused with red bean paste, which is sometimes used as a filler.
• Five kernel (五仁, wǔ rén): A filling consisting of 5 types of nuts and seeds, coarsely chopped, is held together with maltose syrup. Recipes differ from region to region, but commonly used nuts and seeds include: walnuts, pumpkin seeds, watermelon seeds, peanuts, sesame seeds, or almonds. In addition, the mixture will usually contain candied winter melon, jinhua ham, or pieces of rock sugar as additional flavoring.


Most mooncakes consist of a thin, tender skin enveloping a sweet, dense filling, and may contain one or more whole salted egg yolks in its center to symbolise the full moon. Very rarely, mooncakes are also served steamed or fried.

Traditional mooncakes have an imprint on top consisting of the Chinese characters for "longevity" or "harmony", as well as the name of the bakery and the filling inside. Imprints of the moon, the Chang'e woman on the moon, flowers, vines, or a rabbit (symbol of the moon) may surround the characters for additional decoration.
{End Wikipedia}

Basically, moon cakes are everywhere, in every store, packaged individually and in decorative boxes of 4 or more, ranging in price from 30 cents a piece to about $15 a piece. And when you are out and about the majority of the people walking around seem to have carrier bags filled with gift boxes. In honor of the holiday, our driver gave us some from Marco Polo, a local high-end, bakery/pastry shop. They were beautifully packaged

and I suspect they were quite expensive. They are very elegantly shaped, and I wish I knew what the characters on them actually said.

But the simple fact is that I find them revolting. (I think I understand why the Mongols didn't eat them either!) They are very dense and have a very heavy brown, earthy flavor. I really don’t know how else to describe it, but try to imagine what lotus seed or bean paste might taste like.

Ick. It coats your tongue and it is difficult to rid your mouth of it, if you are brave enough to try them. I guess if I drank Chinese tea I could wash it down with that. I feel bad because as I said, I suspect Mr. Bian paid a lot for them and we will likely end up giving them away.

He also gave us a nice bottle of Australian Shiraz and a little goodie bag with the following:

I have no idea what these are, perhaps a green tea candy? They seem to be a hard chewy candy, like a toffee or a caramel. (But not like the kind of toffees that I can eat by the handful!) I haven’t had the courage to put one in my mouth, the smell is not very enticing to me. And these:

This in particular cracks me up because on the package it says “dried pineapple” but when I opened it I found these little yogurt cups with these strange, clear, gelatin-like blocks in it, not actually any fruit at all.

So somewhere between Bentonville and here (Yes, we have a WalMart here in Shanghai…, hence the Members Mark brand) the pineapple morphed, I guess? I have to laugh: maybe he thought “It’s an American product, surely they will like it”. Maybe the kids will eat it….Either way, it was a very nice gesture on his part!

So the Fall Harvest is officially ended. Put your feet up with the farmers, take a break and admire the harvest moon with a nice mooncake and some Chinese Tea.        Or not.

Reflections on an Anniversary

Hard to believe that it's been a year since the first time I came to China. Harder still to believe that Vivi, in her 2 years and 5 months has spent more time in Asia than she has in the States. In some ways time has simply flown by (one of the reasons I haven't posted in almost 2 months is that I feel like I can't keep up!) but in so many of the ways mentioned in earlier blogs, it really has been a long year! But it has been a good year in retrospect. (Yesterday Heinz said "You haven't posted a blog in a while; everything must be going too well...") And really it has been going pretty well. We've finally hit a stride. Everyone has found some friends (except poor Barney, but I'm still working on that) and we really love our neighborhood.

Our 4th of July party was a lot of fun. I had to laugh at the irony: all of our American friends had already headed back to the States so it turned out we were the only Americans in attendance and the bulk of the guest list was British! They graciously came anyway. The guest list had a wonderfully international mix along with the Brits: German, French, Ecuadorian, New Zealanders, Fijians, and of course our own Swiss contribution. The ice cream turned out well and dessert was celebrated with one of my favorite gadgets: My Williams Sonoma ice cream sandwich maker.

We all wore our colors, even Barney.

I had bought him this bandana our first summer in Indy, years ago. Along with it came this one, and I thought it was perfect for hanging on the gate to welcome our guests.

On closer inspection I got another big laugh and dose of irony, finding this at the bottom corner:

I have to wonder just how many of my household items I have "brought home" to their place of creation! Have we told you all the story of our dining room chairs? 8 1/2 years ago, when we were moving to Indy, we bought a dining room table, the first piece of furniture purchased together for our new home! Well, at the time there weren't chairs offered with it, and sadly, we still can't really afford the matching chairs...(could only afford the Stickley table because it was a 'scratch and dent'!) Fast forward to the autumn of 2010 and it occurs to us that if we are going to get some chairs, now might be a good time to replace the beat up old ones that have been in my possession for nearly 15 years, the ones the cats scratched and Barney chewed on! So we found some chairs online that we liked and had them shipped to the house. Naturally they arrived unassembled. So now the dilemma...if we leave them in the boxes for the movers to take, will we be charged extra tariffs on arrival in China for importing "new" goods? I'm pretty handy with a wrench so we'll just avoid the issue; I'll put them together before the movers get started. Well, of course we expected they were made in China, but I cracked up when I discovered this on the bottom of the seat:

I have since learned that there is a large furniture production/sales district just down the road from our complex. Wouldn't it be funny if the Brilliant Furniture Co. was just around the corner from us?

So after our 3 weeks in New York last month we are settling back into a routine of sorts back in Shanghai. The kids have started some activities. Conrad is participating in a soccer class and a "multi-sport" class (basically an opportunity to run and jump and throw things while learning to follow directions and be part of a group) and Viv is doing gymnastics. Conrad is also taking part in a pastime that it seems is very common for western kids living in Asia: modelling. He is technically already a professional, having been paid to model clothes for a Japanese children's catalog last spring. That job came through an open casting call made on the ShanghaiMamas website. This next job is, get this, actually an acting job! (Can't say that without a chuckle to myself-it's a television commercial for a bank. Aunt Frannie, he's following in your footsteps!) We got involved with this agency when one of the agents approached us in the shopping center about 2 weeks before we went away for the summer. It's the sort of surreal thing that happens all the time in Asia (you just get so used to everyone wanting to take pictures of your kids) that when it finally happens to you, there's really no surprise. She took pictures of the kids, gave me her card and I thought nothing more about it until she called about 2 weeks ago asking Conrad to come in for an audition. So we did. Why not, right? Turns out he's made the short list but I have to crack up because now it's practically becoming a full time job! He's been called back for a second audition, but also has to go at a different time to be measured for the wardrobe. If he gets it, which they are very careful to say that it is still not a done deal, he will be paid 200RMB an hour, about 30$, maybe half day, maybe whole day. Might as well do it, it's not like we have so many other pressing engagements on our calendar these days! We'll keep you posted on how it turns out.

    

In the meantime, Froggy says:

"enjoy what's left of your summer!"

A year in, we have found our footing here, that's true, but we still miss you all very much. School has started all over the world and for most of our loved ones that means settling into a new routine, some of you even a new country (Love you, Sarah!!). Sending our love and peace to you all as you find your footing~

Shanghai Ice Farm

Some of you may remember the 4th of July debacle of a few years ago when I tried to make red, white and blue ice cream? I thought I was so crafty; I made vanilla ice cream, picked all of the red and blue mini M&M's out of a bag and threw them into the machine. At the end I had purple ice cream with chocolate chips...at least it still tasted good!

We have decided to have a 4th of July barbecue and I will make ice cream. I won't be getting so involved as to try the red, white and blue again because this time my dilemma is a lot more basic: to make ice cream, one needs a key ingredient- ice. I think the American culture is the only one in which ice is sold in such accessible quantities. How many of you will stop at the C-store or gas station, or while at the grocery store pick up a bag or two of ice this weekend? But if you don't, you can rest assured that if you do run out you can just go down the street and get more, right? I don't have that luxury, so a few days ago I started farming ice. I searched all of my drawers and cupboards to find any and every container that could make a cube big enough to be worth it, but small enough to fit in the drum of my ice cream maker, I cleared out as much of the freezer as I could, and started stock-piling ice.

If she didn't before, my Ayi truly thinks I am nuts now! I can just see her shaking her head: "crazy Americans". My next concern is that my maker works alright plugged into the voltage converter. I don't have a lot of rock salt either...Wish me luck- I'll let you know how the ice cream turns out. Stop by and have some if you're in the neighborhood. Happy 4th everyone!

Late Night Snacks, Beijing-style

When we were in Beijing a few weeks ago we had an opportunity to walk through one of the night markets near our hotel, about 10 minutes walk from Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. There were about 40 food vendors lined up.

Many of them had the same basic fare to offer: some fruit (although they serve it covered in this clear jelly goop that looks so disgusting I could never bring myself to actually buy it), dumplings, a plate of noodles, some steamed buns. I couldn't resist a plate of fried dumplings, even though we had eaten earlier. As we walked on through the stalls, though,  

it definitely got easier to resist. And harder to hold back what I had just eaten... 

Interestingly, I did not see anyone buying from these meticulously ordered displays. The one thing that I did observe someone buy was the scorpions on a stick. I missed getting a picture of that though: For about 1$ US you could buy a stick with 3 or 4 1-inch scorpions on it but the picture wouldn't really have done it justice anyway because in most cases the scorpions were still moving while skewered on the stick, before being plunged into the deep fryer. I saw a couple of what looked to be American college kids daring each other to buy them. I found myself staring as a gutsy girl engaged in her own private Fear Factor episode (although they'd probably still be alive on the real FF). "Crunchy," she said. "Bitter", she said, without so much as a gag! We moved on just as she was daring her male companions to rise to the challenge.

Walking through I couldn't help but wonder: what is the order of this food chain? Does someone go out and look under rocks and in tidal pools to harvest their inventory? Do they have to clean them like vegetables pulled from the earth before they lay them out? Are they farm raised? I can't even begin to imagine how it works. Or what it might be like to eat a deep-fried silkworm pupa. According to Born Survivor: Bear Grylls bugs ARE a great source of protein. Hungry, anyone?

And just for fun, here are some of the other interesting foods seen around Shanghai in our daily travels:

And on the lighter side, a choice for dessert perhaps:

You might notice that they are labeled as an American product. Has anyone seen them on the shelves at Kroger or Meijer lately?

Our Latest Toy

This...

is our new best friend. No, I have not taken up tennis suddenly as a way to shed that last 10 pounds of baby weight (that training for and running 3 half marathons in 18 months has not helped me to shake-how sad is that?? As I have said before: I can find chocolate cookies ANYWHERE in the world; TimTams have conquered the globe!) No, the Bjorn Borg fanship remains solely the territory of my sister Sharon. (Sending you love and hugs in your recovery my dear sister!)

This is an

a handheld, rechargeable electronic bug zapper.

It is mosquito season everywhere in the northern hemisphere, I think. After going from cold directly to hot, the weather here has settled down a bit and is now quite mild, even pleasant, most days. A few of our windows have retractable screens, which is nice, so we were able to enjoy the breezes and the fresh air for a while. It didn't take long however for the mosquitoes to decide that inside our house was the place to be. And they were showing up in droves. Vivi looked like a little leper, she had so many bites. We didn't get a decent night's sleep for about a week, they kept waking us up. Enter the bug zapper: Skeeters, say hello to my little friend! As a kid growing up I was always kind of creeped out by those purple bug lights but now I am of the mind that there is no more satisfying sound than that ZAP! of a mosquito defeated! No more chasing the little 6@$+@rds around the room, trying to clap them between your hands, only to miss and have them fly away in triumph. Simply wave the "EMT" in their vicinity and you are likely to catch them. Pop! And Heavens above, I do not know how we would have survived without this. At first we thought it must be holes in the screens. We couldn't see any but moving parts are always an opportunity for failure: they must be climbing in along the tracks or something, we thought. Then the heat returned and we had a day over 90 degrees with about 90% humidity. (We've started Plum Rain season but more on that later.) So we closed the windows and finally turned on the AC. And I swear, the next 2 nights were the worst of all. We've decided that there must be an air intake somewhere that doesn't have a necessary screen on it or something because it is as if we have a window wide open somewhere and they are just pouring in! Within the space of about an hour one evening we killed about 20 with our little friend. I am the Mosquito Hunter! Around dinner time we "sweep the perimeter". That lasts until about bedtime and then I sweep the bedrooms before I put the kids to bed and close their door. I also found some of those Raid diffusers where you insert the repellent soaked pad and it diffuses repellent into the air but I think it took a day or two for the repellent to saturate the rooms adequately because even with those in place there was always at least one or two-or 12 that would wake you up at night. One night Heinz and I laughed that we were going to have to sleep in shifts to protect each other because we had already killed about 8 but no matter how much we tried to hunt them all down, once we turned off the light and dropped off to sleep another one came buzzing along.

I truly think this could be the greatest invention ever. If it wasn't for the voltage conversion issues (and probably some anti-electronics import regulations), I would bring a suitcaseful home to my family and friends when we head Stateside next month. It must emit a sound because every time we press the activator Barney looks up, twitches his ears and he does that cute little head twist. It bothering him would be the only thing that might make me hesitate to use it but thankfully he doesn't seem to care. After that initial response he simply puts his head back down and goes back to sleep. My Mandarin instructor also has a maid service in which she teaches her Ayis a high level of English to work for Western families. She said one of them asked her what the English name was for this little beauty. She was surprised that we haven't got a word (other than "bug zapper"?) for it and so am I! Where have they been all my life? When we move home I will happily buy a converter specially for my little baby so that I can use it through the Indiana summer!

Wishing you all Mosquito free days~

The Great Wall

I was hoping that my time in Asia would present some really neat opportunities and I think this one is going to be hard to beat! This was definitely one of those where, halfway through you're saying to yourself "Who is the idiot that thought this was a good idea???" and then you actually do it, you cross the finish line, and it's like giving birth: all the pain and agony that led up to that moment is completely washed away by the euphoria and the flood of endorphins! I did it! It was an amazing challenge, impossible to prepare for and possibly the coolest thing I have ever done. (Although the Race through the Jungle at the EFRC in Indiana does come close....roaring lions 20 feet away: very cool!)

I was really worried going into Race Day for a couple of reasons: my legs were still sore from walking the 2 miles of wall on inspection day 2 days prior; the 3:30 bus departure from the hotel on Race Morning meant at least a 3am wake-up call; and knowing that, since this is not a race one does for time, I had let my training slip and was not as fit on race day as I might have wanted to be. But Race Day dawns, regardless, doesn't it?

The bus leaves at way-too-early:30 but a breakfast box provided by the hotel puts a smile on my Sherpa's face! Love you honey!

Pre Race activity in Yin and Yang Square, the heart of the Fortress, where the 1/2 and full both begin and end.

Number's on; if I wasn't so freakin' cold (it was about 50 degrees) I might be ready to go! Thank God the sun came out and it turned out to be a perfect day for running, about 70 degrees.

And at 7:40, we're off! Out through the Fortress main gate

on the road to the wall, to what I affectionately refer to as...

The Hill of Attrition! 5 kilometers straight UP....

...and UP....

...and up. I was really freaked out on inspection day when I realized this part of the course. I learned a lot about reading a course topography map that day!

I was so relieved when we finally hit the 5 km. mark (you can see it propped against the road sign) because that meant we were around the corner from

Just a few more steps up...

And there it is

Now the fun starts!
 

You can see: it was a beautiful day! It was the biggest field ever, 2000 participants (over 500 in the full, over 800 in the half, 350 or so in the 10k and and about 225 in the 5k) so unfortunately there were a lot of bottle necks

But that was alright because it left some time for taking pictures

My motto for the day: "The journey is the reward"

Along the wall the steps vary in height and depth but in many cases it was little more than a stone ledge or ramp with a sheer vertical drop to one side. You couldn't see the bottom here without hanging out over the edge a bit. I chose not to do so.

The last portion of Wall was "The Goat Track": mostly dirt trail, straight down, with the occasional steps thrown in. But it afforded a beautiful aerial view of the Fort and the Square, including the beginning of the 10 k race, starting out under the bridge (see below). The course for the half wound around the fort once (which basically surrounded all of the buildings that you can see in these pictures; about 1 km), went down into and through the square, and back out onto the road for another 7+ miles. The next 1 1/2 miles was on the road, the middle 4 was in the nearby "village" circling back to the road to retrace the 1 1/2 miles back into the square. That middle 4 miles was a real trail run: all dirt, in some cases rocky path, and also full of hills.

 Some views through the village:

Almost there!

And finally, over 3 and a half hours later back in the Square!

It felt so good to be finished! And it really is true, once the endorphins kick in, you forget how miserable you were at mile 9! Am serious about doing it again next year so those of you who want to join me, let's start making some plans! All in all, it was a great race. I'll go into more detail about some of the fun anecdotes from the morning on the course in a next installment. At the moment I am surprised that blogspot has let me put this many pictures in one post so I won't push my luck. I'll wrap this up for now and write a little more soon. Happy running everyone!