Saturday was mooncake festival. What could have been a great evening got spoiled by the rain, so in the end I just went home instead of staying out. One of Kloudiia's post struck me - yes, there does not seem to be many lanterns in recent years. Why is that so? Is it because the tradition of playing with lanterns or holding lanterns have long since died out?
I remember when I was young, during every Mid-Autumn Festival, my cousins and I would gather at my maternal grandma's place, where we would have a big feast. While the adults chatted, we kids would always have a lantern. One of the adults (usually my mum or aunt) would lit up our lanterns and we would then go out and play around in the garden, trying not to let the candle fizzle out.
Then the age of battery-operated lanterns came, but because those were more expensive, my parents would still stick with the traditional ones. When was the last time I actually did this? Think it would have been when my cousin got hospitalised for leukaemia. I was about nine?
Then after she passed away, my uncle's family moved out temporarily for three years while their house got knocked down and rebuilt into the current joint semi-detached, and since then, I never celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival again or held another lantern.
In recent years, my relatives made it a point to celebrate mooncake festival again, but it would just be a gathering at a restaurant for the family. There are still mooncakes of course, but no more lanterns.
Is that why there is a lack of lanterns in recent years, because people simply do not celebrate the mooncake festival anymore the way we did? Wonder if these traditions will still stay on for our younger generation!
I remember when I was young, during every Mid-Autumn Festival, my cousins and I would gather at my maternal grandma's place, where we would have a big feast. While the adults chatted, we kids would always have a lantern. One of the adults (usually my mum or aunt) would lit up our lanterns and we would then go out and play around in the garden, trying not to let the candle fizzle out.
Then the age of battery-operated lanterns came, but because those were more expensive, my parents would still stick with the traditional ones. When was the last time I actually did this? Think it would have been when my cousin got hospitalised for leukaemia. I was about nine?
Then after she passed away, my uncle's family moved out temporarily for three years while their house got knocked down and rebuilt into the current joint semi-detached, and since then, I never celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival again or held another lantern.
In recent years, my relatives made it a point to celebrate mooncake festival again, but it would just be a gathering at a restaurant for the family. There are still mooncakes of course, but no more lanterns.
Is that why there is a lack of lanterns in recent years, because people simply do not celebrate the mooncake festival anymore the way we did? Wonder if these traditions will still stay on for our younger generation!
1 comments:
I coulndn't find a moon cake to buy this year.
Madrid is surprisingly mono-cultural. Finding other foodstuffs is quite difficult. There is no Chinatown. I haven't seen any "ethnic" stores (aside from Latin American ones) - no German, Polish, Chinese (although, there are lots and lots fo Chinese restaurants).
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