The Origin of Mid-Autumn Festival
The Origin of Mid-Autumn Festival, one of the four Chinese traditional festivals
Dear friends, do you know how the Mid-Autumn Festival came about? Legend has it that a long time ago, there were ten suns in the sky, hanging together in the sky. They baked the earth hot and dry, dried up rivers, withered crops, and caused unbearable suffering to the people.
At this moment, there was a powerful archery hero named Hou Yi. He picked up his bow and arrow, aimed at the sun in the sky, and shot down the excess nine suns one by one until only one sun remained in the sky, and the earth gradually regained vitality. The people also lived a happy life.
Due to Hou Yi’s contributions, the Queen Mother gave him a fairy medicine. This elixir can make people soar to the sky and become immortals. But Hou Yi couldn’t bear to leave his beloved wife Chang’e, so he entrusted the elixir to Chang’e for safekeeping. However, one day when Hou Yi was not at home, a bad guy named Pang Meng secretly broke into their house and wanted to steal the elixir. Chang’e swallowed the elixir in a hurry to prevent the bad guys from succeeding. In an instant, Chang’e became light and floated, slowly flying into the sky, and finally landed on the moon closest to Earth.
From then on, Chang’e lived on the moon, and every night, people would see her shadow reflected on the bright moon. Hou Yi missed Chang’e very much, so whenever the moon was at its fullest, he would place Chang’e’s favorite food at his doorstep and look at the moon from afar, hoping that she could see it.
After people learned that Chang’e flew to the moon, they also began to put sweet cakes and fruits on the night of the full moon in the Mid Autumn Festival to express their yearning for Chang’e in the sky, which is the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Every Mid-Autumn Festival, our family get together, eat round mooncakes, admire the big and round moon, and tell the story of Chang’e flying to the moon.
At this moment, the moon is the most beautiful and round, as if reminding us that no matter where we are, the love and longing between family members are always inseparable like a full moon.