School? On Saturday? Most certainly. Everyone worked this Saturday. Why? Because we had Monday and Tuesday off for the Moon Festival.

The Moon Festival (also referred to as the Mid-Autumn Festival) is huge here. It happens yearly on the 15th moon day of the 8th Chinese lunar Month. So this year it was September 25. The legend of the Moon Festival is as follows (taken from a website):

"Once upon a time there was a famous archer, Hou Yi, who with his arrows was able to slay mankind’s worst enemies, ferocious beasts that inhabited the earth. Yi was married to Chang-O, a beautiful but inquisitive woman who had been an attendant of the queen mother of the west before her marriage. Now at this time, there were 10 suns that took turns circling the earth-one every 10 days. One day, all 10 of the orbs circled, together, causing the earth’s surface to burn and threatening mankind. The wise emperor of China summoned Yi and commanded him to kill but one of the suns. This Yi proceeded to do. Upon the completion of his task, Yi was rewarded with a pill, the elixir of life, and advised: "make no haste to swallow this pill, but first prepare yourself with prayer and fasting for a year." Being a wise man, Yi took the pill home and hid it under a rafter while he began healing his spirit, In the midst of this, Yi was summoned again by the emperor.

While her husband was gone, Chang-O noticed a beam of white light beckoning from the rafter. She followed it and a fragrant perfume, discovered the pill and swallowed it. Immediately, Chang-O found she could fly. Just at that moment her husband returned home, realize what had happened and began to reprimand his wife. Chang-O flew out the window into the sky. Yi sped after her, bow in hand, and the pursuit continued halfway across the heavens. Finally, Yi had to return to the earth because of the force of the wind.

His wife reached the moon and there, breathless, she coughed and part of the pill fell from her mouth. Now, the hare was already on the moon and Chang-O commanded the animal to take pestle and mortar and pound another pill so that she return to earth and her husband. The hare is still pounding.

As for Yi, he built himself a palace in the sun as Yang (the sun and the male principle), Chang-O as Yin (the moon and the female principle).

Once a year, on the 15th day of the full moon, Yi visits his wife. That is why the moon is full and beautiful on that night."

The moon really was amazing that night. The Moon Festival is a really great excuse for family reunions. There are tons of bbqs- not the kind that we have in the states. The whole extended family gathers around and grills anything and everything. From vegetables, to bread, to seafood, to every kind of meat you can possibly think of. It's really incredible- both the food and the family atmosphere.

You're also supposed to eat a moon cake on the moon festival for good luck. Moon cakes are everywhere for the time leading up to the Moon Festival, and my housemates and I received our weight in them. They're little round, dense cakes filled with different things. Most commonly found is the yolk moon cake, with a duck egg yolk in the middle. Definitely threw me for a loop the first time I encountered it. Not going to lie, it still kind of weirds me out. If you're interested, I've put a like to a moon cake recipe at the bottom of this post.

Another popular food item on the Moon Festival is the pomelo. They're huge and you can buy them quite literally everywhere for very very cheap. They taste like sweet grapefruits and you're supposed to make the peel into a crown to wear, with the hopes that the gods will protect you. I am totally in love with this fruit and have to watch it or I eat about 5 of them a day.

I was invited to a bbq with my host family on Sunday night. We drove about 30 minutes outside of Yilan to this tiny Aboriginal village where basically the entire village was gathered for bbqs. My host family was incredible- they had tons of vegetables and seafood for me and were concerned that I wasn't well fed the entire night. They had nothing to worry about. I had a fantastic time, and maybe next time I'm in a situation like that, I'll actually sing a karaoke song, like they all wanted me to.

On Monday evening I went with my LET, Anne, to her father's birthday party. Anne's dad has 8 brothers and sisters, so all through the night, Anne kept saying: "this is my cousin... I can't remember her name." The party was huge, again, with tons of courses and very nice people. It's customary to go around and greet/thank everyone for coming to the party. All the tables take turns doing it, and when they come over, you're supposed to raise your glass and drink it. Usually you take your cue from how much the others drink, but frequently (at this event, at least), everyone was downing their entire glass. Now, mind you, the glasses aren't much bigger than a shot glass. But when they're frequently filled with beer, there is a tendency for one to indulge a little too much.

All of Anne's relatives kept coming over because they wanted to "have a toast with the American." Which means they were very intent on my glass being filled constantly. At a certain point, I decided I was done with beer, and I certainly didn't want any of the deadly looking clear liquid they were passing around. So, in desperation, I turned to the music teacher from my school, Harmony, who was sitting next to me, and asked for help. She pulled out a pitcher that she was hiding under her chair, dumped my beer into, and then refilled my cup with green tea from a bottle that she was keeping under the table. Slick. Apparently she was doing this all night and no one was the wiser. I just had to watch it when someone tried to refill my glass with the real stuff.

So although it was weird to be in school on Saturday (although this was a fairly productive, uplifting day), and it'll be hard to only have one day off, this past weekend totally makes up for it.
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Moon cake recipe