On September 8th, China had a national holiday called Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Festival. Chinese legend has it, there used to be a bunch of suns in the sky, making China hot as balls. A dude called Houyi (Ho - ee) was like, hey, you know what can stop global warming? Archery. So he pulled out his arrows and shot down all but one of the suns. Wahoo! But being the badass he was, he wanted to live forever, and bought a potion to do so. He was kind of douchey, so his wife was like, nah bro, I’ll drink that for you because no one wants to see your ugly ass for all of eternity. And then she turned into a rabbit and floated into the moon.
I’m not making any of this up. Sounds pretty ridiculous, but then again, American holidays have children believing in a magical bunny that leaves eggs filled with diabetes, which is equally stupid. Anyway, the most important thing is that because Houyi was a dick, now we have a day off from work. Thanks, Houyi, for your dickishness!
The day after, my kindergarten students dressed up in traditional costumes.
I’m not making any of this up. Sounds pretty ridiculous, but then again, American holidays have children believing in a magical bunny that leaves eggs filled with diabetes, which is equally stupid. Anyway, the most important thing is that because Houyi was a dick, now we have a day off from work. Thanks, Houyi, for your dickishness!
The day after, my kindergarten students dressed up in traditional costumes.
They pretended to be store owners and sold moon cakes to pretend customers (the younger aged students). The little ones gave them each 一元, or 1 RMB coin (around 16 cents) and the older ones "sold" them a moon cake.
What are moon cakes? I don’t know where they came from in the Houyi story, but I’m about 98% sure they’re not actually made of moon. Mostly they’re just made of gross.
For shits and giggles, I'll leave you with some more pictures of my kiddos being absolutely adorable.