Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Legend of Mooncake Festival







LEGEND OF CHANG ER
Once upon a time, there were ten suns surrounded the earth which caused drought and suffering to human. One day the Queen of Heaven ordered Hou Yi a famous archery to save the earth. He managed to use his arrowed to shoot down nine of the suns. The Queen of Heaven rewarded Hou Yi the elixir of life for his heroic deed. However, Hou Yi turned to become very evil. Chang Er his wife drank the elixir of life in order to save the people from her husband's tyrannical rule. After drinking the elixir of life she felt her body was very light and flew to the moon. Hou Yi love his wife so much that he never shoot down the moon and Chang Er live at the moon forever.

LEGEND OF MOONCAKE
Do you know why the Chinese eat moon cake to celebrate mooncake festival? There is a history behind the legend. China was once ruled by Mongolian during the Yuan dynasty at AD. 1280-1368. The Chinese were very unhappy to be rule by foreigner. The leaders of the preceding Sung dynasty decided to go underground to coordinate a rebelled again the Yuan government. The rebellion leaders ordered to baked moon cake and inside each moon cake insert an outline of the attack against the government. Because it is a Han cake, the Mongolians were not interested and therefore not able to discover the planned. The plan was very successful and managed to overthrown the Mongolian government and built the Ming dynasty. To commemorate this event, Chinese will bake and eat moon cake to celebrate the mooncake festival from passed till now.

(Info from Singapore Best Guide)



I prepare some story for my kids during this lantern festival from google search to make the celebration more interesting. (Due to I have forgotten most of the lantern festival lagend with so many version) I copy some for sharing....


HAPPY MOONCAKE FESTIVAL !!!!!!

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