Mooncake & Mid-Autumn Festival
Tonite was Mid-Autumn Festival which is a celebration in China for the longest full moon of the year. The Autumn Solstice basically. Apparently the way it is celebrated today is based off of a legend originating in the Tang Dynasty. The chinese basically use it as a way to get blitzed. They sure know how to party. They got these things called Mooncakes...which are chinese fruitcakes. Some of them are good...some aren't. And people constantly give them to you, either out of a gesture of kindness or as a way to get rid of the ones they were given. I received a bunch and I was able to "give away" a box. I received a box from Sammy, one of the teachers at the school. I think she is trying to seduce me with wind chimes and mooncakes. The box she presented to me was gorgeous. I mean, i was impressed. Its a wooden box with a map of all the constellations on the top. Very nice.
So, what i did was set up by Bond. My kindergarten class was canceled on account of the festival. So, I headed to the Bond Xiaolan office. There was a bus waiting and a bunch of the folks from Xiaolan headed to ShiQi to pick up the folks there. Once we did that we headed down to Zhongshan Park. Its a memorial park honoring 1 of the 3 greatest chinese of the past century. Dr. Sun Yat Sen...or Dr. Sun Zhongshan. He was the democratic revolutionary that aided in the downfall of the Ching Dynasty, however, unfortunately...we all knew what happened to that democratic movement. The other two are Chairman Mao and Den Xiaopeng. I asked the tour guide...where is Wong Fei-Hung? Fool.
Anywho. The park was huge and gorgeous. I want to climb the mountain they got there. We got back on the bus to head to Zhongshan Gardens and eat dinner.
Leianna had bought one of those linked toy snakes and scared the crap out of Tanya on the bus while Stephen, the tour guide, was talking. She screamed soooo loud. Pretty funny. Owen got a frightful jump too when Moses did it to him.
We arrived at the gardens and they were absolutely gorgeous. Old traditional rich chinese architecture. The fancy stuff. We walked around alot. Check out the fotos. The dinner was good too. There was a performance schedualed for 8pm. That was great. Highlights of the performance:
1. The lion dance at the beginning..i love that stuff.
2. The acrobats.
3. The Mask Changing Guy...very good.
Don't worry, i got video of it all. I was running low on tape and battery power. After the performance we were just chilling and exploring. They were sending wishes down the river. Placing a written card in a lotus petal candle holder, lighting it, and setting it on a piece of foam/wood. Unfortunately, Buddha did not grant my wish...and I realized this as all of our floaters floated right into a bunch of grass on the bank of the river ten feet away from where they were let go....good thinking there, Fignuts!
It was time to head back so we climbed in the bus and headed back. For some reason they were playing Canto-pop real loud. it was a sad ending to a wonderful nite. ;-)