MooncakesandtraditionalMusic

Today marks the beginning of The Mid-Autumn Festival. It's a big deal here in China. I have lifted this from my Chinese friend Susan Guan's Facebook page because she explains it much better than i could:

The Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節, zhōng qiū jié), also known as the Moon Festival, is a popular East Asian celebration of abundance and togetherness, dating back over 3,000 years to China's Zhou Dynasty.[dubious – discuss] In Malaysia and Singapore, it is also sometimes referred to as the Lantern Festival or Mooncake Festival. The Chinese Lantern Festival is held on the 15th day of the first lunar month.The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month of the Chinese calendar (usually around mid- or late-September in the Gregorian calendar), a date that parallels the Autumn Equinox of the solar calendar. This is the ideal time, when the moon is at its fullest and brightest, to celebrate the abundance of the summer's harvest. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are many different varieties.The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the two most important holidays in the Chinese calendar (the other being the Chinese Lunar New Year), and is a legal holiday in several countries. Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date. Traditionally, on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomeloes together. Accompanying the celebration, there are additional cultural or regional customs, such as:

Eating moon cakes outside under the moon Putting pomelo rinds on one's head Carrying brightly lit lanterns Burning incense in reverence to deities including Chang'e Planting Mid-Autumn trees Collecting dandelion leaves and distributing them evenly among family members Lighting lanterns on towers Fire Dragon Dances Shops selling mooncakes, before the festival, often display pictures of Chang'e floating to the moon.

Thanks to Susan for that. Due to the Holiday, I am off on Monday (no school), YaY!

Tonight, as part of the celebration, the Dalian Government invited many of us foreign experts""( teachers and businessmen) to a concert featuring the Dalian Philharmonic. The Orchestra used traditional Chinese instruments. It was a nice sampling of Chinese culture; they did classics and also sampled some Chinese Opera. It was a entertaining and illuminating experience. The mayor of the city was there. so i kind of felt a little like a bigshot. but the best part was the music, which was pretty good. very different. I am starting to like some Chinese music, although most of the American influenced pop sucks, if you ask me.

A big part of this festival are moon cakes. moon cakes are very ornate looking, but can be filled with many thing ( Jessica likes egg yokes and egg whites, i have heard of meat ones, Winston had an apple one that he did not like). The Chinese seem to love these things; most westerners don't . However, they are a big part of this culturally significant holiday.

ok, hopefully tommorrow i will continue with the chonology, but it's also English Corner day, so I will probably talk about that...

A fellow teacher, Ryan, sent me the following link. It's Japanese, but still very simular and awesome. check it out:

http://www.videofantastica.com/view_video/31903/

PrisonBreak,KFCandspiderman

ok, later tonight i will continue with my chronological telling of my adventures in China. By the way, today marks my third week in China! I have a three day weekend coming up due to Mid Aumtumn festival. This Holiday seems to be distinguished by the giving of what they call Mooncakes, which are little pastries that have a variety of fillings in them, from apple to egg yoke to meat. The Chinese will eat anything: neck, feet, ears and eyes, chicken heads,brains. Most of what I have seen is pretty good though, vegatables and regular meat.

The Chinese are crazy about the american show Prison Break, although I am not sure why. I think that it has been translated and imported on DVD. All of my students ask me about it, and of course they think I look like one of the guys, a Villian of course ( paradoxically enough, they also think that fellow teacher Ed looks like the same guy- Ed is much better looking then I am!). I have never seen the show, to me its just another american show. but they love it. They also love KFC. KFC is everythwhere here. The menu is pretty much the same, except they have one item that is essentially tofu and chicken on a stick. They also love Mcdonalds.

I finished up the name excercise at the public schools yesterday. The only good name was Spiderman. I think that this kid may be the real thing. He knew that Spiderman's real name is Peter Parker ( although one could argue that the real spiderman would never give out his secreat identity- although he sort of did in the comics recently, only to have it "taken back")! They are very sweet kids.

As I said, I will later continue with my telling of my adventures. Also, pretty soon, I would like to talk about Prostitutes! I am trying to keep this thing up to date, but my work schedule is very full. I teach at threee different schools, I have 26 classes a week and around 265 students! So forgive me if i a tuckered out sometimes. also, there is a comment application on this blog. please leave comments if you wish, i will be very excited to read them!

Patrick