Happy Holidays ~ Golden Week & Mooncake Madness

Fall in China is chock full of holidays, both traditional and political. Thus October, my favorite month, has taken off with a bang.

Late September ushered in holiday consumer frenzy with advertisements for mooncakes on every corner, subway station and magazine page, bringing with it a sea of festive red and gold shopping bags. Everyone was getting ready for the September 30^th Mid Autumn Festival- a traditional Chinese holiday that dates back over 2,000 years and occurs every year on the 15^th day of the 8^th Lunar month, usually around the time of the autumn equinox. Widely celebrated throughout China, the Mid Autumn Festival holiday brings families together in reunion to gaze at the full moon and eat tasty mooncakes. 

But what is a mooncake?

It is a delicious little pastry about the size of personal tart. With a round form and scalloped edges, mooncakes are beautifully decorated with intricate traditional designs and characters. Dry and sweet, their dense interior contains various smooth paste fillings flavored with nuts, fruit, red bean, green tea, chocolate, meat and Haagen Dazs’ trendy ice cream.

 Around festival time these little confections are sold from every nook and cranny- you can buy trendy and expensive mooncakes from international companies like Starbucks or just pick them up from a local bakery shelf or packaged at a convenience store. The nicer ones come wrapped and nestled within ornately decorated individual boxes, which are then arranged in a larger grand package. It is popular for friends to exchange mooncakes, students to gift them to their teachers, and of course to bring a nice selection to your holiday family gathering.

 And so the Mid Autumn Festival arrived, complete with mooncake madness!

The next day- October 1^st- marked National Day and the beginning of Golden Week. During this holiday the Peoples Republic of China celebrates its October 1^st 1949 founding and gives the entire country a weeklong semi-paid vacation. Mayhem ensues. 

Ignorantly, Julia and I dreamed about traveling to Tibet, Burma or domestic Guilin during this week off, but with the 740 million (that’s actually a statistic) other trips planned for the 8-day holiday, tickets were either too expensive or just plain unavailable. Thus we planned a lovely Beijing stay-cation instead. Good thing too, the city was mobbed! I have never seen so many Chinese with cameras, candied fruit kabobs and street maps in my life- they descended on the 798 Art District where I work like a tidal wave, making the people watching marvelous. 

 As for our own national week, Julia and I filled ourselves to the brim with fun- snack markets, the China tennis Open, concerts, gallery openings and fashion shows, the Korean spa, hutong vintage shopping, vegan eats, movie thrillers and American reunions during the presidential debates. When Beijing is your stomping ground, vacationing at home is plenty exciting.