An English Teacher in China: The Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节 “zhōngqiū jié”)

Moon Cakes!

The Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节 “zhōngqiū jié”) is the second biggest festival in China, after the Spring Festival. The holiday is also known as the Moon Festival.This year the Moon Festival fell on September 19^th. It’s strange sometimes how things work out. Last year, during the Moon Festival, I was a guest at a friend’s village. My friend, Apple, was kind enough to invite another American teacher and me to her family home outside the city of Langfang. (It was an amazing experience and you can read about it in a previous blog). However, during the course of the school year, Apple became preoccupied with finishing her senior semester and the two of us barely spoke. I saw her once at Christmas time, where she sung at a talent show, and once more near the end of the school year when we ran into each other at the main gate. Like many Chinese senior students, Apple vanished into her studies and preparations for her final examination. Most Chinese students will spend every waking moment for the better part of their senior year completely devoted to scoring well on the exit examination. So it comes as no surprise that we saw little of each other. Nevertheless, as violent storms do pass, so too does final examinations with hopefully little to know mental scaring. All of the seniors emerged from their hideaways at the end of the school year and return once again as full functioning members of society… with only a few minor twitches. Apple was among the masses who returned to the world of the surface dwellers. She contacted me over the internet and we kept up a good correspondence during my summer vacation in America.

Since my return to China, Apple and her friends have been giving me a grand “welcome back.” As the old saying goes, “A way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” There is no truer statement ever uttered and the girls have found their way to my heart with some really tasty dishes! It seems that everything comes around as once again as I found an invitation from Apple to join her and her friends for this year’s mid-autumn festival, which jest goes to show that you never lose good friends… they just get misplaced during finals. But, I’m getting ahead of myself in the story. My mid-autumn festival actually started with another reunion.

The prodigal student has returned! I started out the mid-autumn festival morning by returning to my Tai Chi master for an early morning lesson. This was the first time I had been back since I left for America. He was delighted to see me and he showed his joy by beating me up… again. It was a cool morning in one of Langfang’s beautiful smaller parks. I woke at 5:30 am and mounted my bike for the long trek. Now that I live on the east side of the city it takes me 30 minutes to go play Tai Chi. But I don’t mind the ride. The city is quite and the ride is peaceful at that hour. The sun is just coming up, the street lights turn off, and the morning dew collects on my handlebars as I ride. Unfortunately, I arrived a half-hour early. The Tai Chi class didn’t start till 6:30 am. This was a problem I rectified the following day. Around 6:30 the other members arrived and they were all happy to see me. We all lined up on the stone pathway among the purple flowers, the calming Tai Chi music played on the portable radio, and the twelve of us moved in synchronize rhythm. I hadn’t forgotten anything… however; I had grown stiff in my lack of practice over the summer. The soon broke me of that…

Afterwards, I biked back home, very sore, and clean myself up. Sabrina, my 11-year-old private tutoring pupil, arrived at 9:30 am with her mother. We had another tutoring session. Normally we wouldn’t meet on the holiday but Sabrina is practicing for an English competition in New York City and I am trying to get her ready as soon as possible. Sabrina is a really smart girl and her skill with the English language is remarkable. Sometimes I forget I’m talking to an 11-year-old as she sounds more like a 33-year-old woman! We worked for about an hour on preparing for the contest. But after that first hour, well… that’s when the real fun begins. Sabrina’s and my favorite part of our session is “story time.” Sabrina is working on writing a novel and I’m helping her with all the parts. She just finished her first short story about ghost, wizards, and vampires. Who knows what she will do next! 11:30 rolled around and it was time for Sabrina and her mother to go. But no sooner had they left then I was visited by another old friend.

Vinnie, and his girlfriend, showed up at my door next bearing food. They had asked me if they could come over and cook for me. I was happy to accept. They came over and we all cooked garlic fried cauliflower, stir-fried squash, and my signature stir-fried egg and tomato dish. Lunch was very delicious. After lunch we played UNO for a while and then we parted ways. I was tired so the afternoon was dedicated to a nice long nap. The evening finally rolled around and I was off on my bike for Apple’s party.

I arrived at the apartment just in time to help with the cooking. They had asked me if I would prepare a fruit salad and I used my Mom’s Thanksgiving Day recipe. It’s simple but delicious! Then we all sat down to a nice meal of broccoli and beef, spicy peanut chicken, egg and tomato, and other great dishes. Lastly we ended our meal with China’s signature mid-autumn day moon cakes! I couldn’t be happier with receiving a moon cake with strawberry filling… my favorite flavor! Afterwards dinner, we all headed out to the park to find the moon. It was a cloudy night but we manage to find is after a little bit of waiting.

My 2013 mid-autumn festival was completely unforgettable. I didn’t really go anywhere special this year but I spent it with good friends. Good friends and family make any day a special occasion.

As always,
Thanks for reading.