Mid-Autumn Festival

According to the lunar calendar, today is the Mid-Autumn Festival (Zhong qiu jie), also known as the Moon Festival. Everyone tells me it's the second most important day on the Chinese calendar (the first being Spring Festival). My students offered an English greeting for today and were quite pleased to hear me respond with the Chinese version. I even received one moon cake from a student at the end of class. They all seemed a little disappointed to have classes today--they even said they wouldn't have time later in the day to celebrate with their friends and classmates because there's too much work to do (and I didn't assign any of it this week). I told them their homework was to call their parents tonight.

I was also informed that my office will give the staff some moon cake today (but they have to give it at the end of the day because it needs to be refrigerated). I'm really thinking that they're spoiling me here.

For those who don't know what moon cakes are, they are a kind of pastry that sits in your stomach for about a week while you try to digest it. OK, I'm exaggerating a bit. Most don't taste all that bad, but they really do make you slow after eating one.