Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! Today is National Day in China. There is a week long break from school and the village is bustling with activity. People have been launching fireworks non-stop since 7 am.
This is not an exaggeration. I've timed it.
The longest stretch of time that I couldn't hear fireworks so far today has been 22 minutes. And while I applaud this display of enthusiastic patriotism, I fear that I will never understand the point of launching fireworks during the day. You can't see them!?!?! Also, the random explosions scare the crap out of me.
I'll just add this to the list of things that will forever baffle me about China.
Besides the time off work, the coolest part of this holiday is the abundance of (mostly) delicious moon cakes – basically a little round pastry consisting of a pie-crust like exterior and some type of mystery filling.
I was gifted an assorted box by my school, and several random moon cakes from my students. Most of them are delicious, however, there have been a few malevolent surprises.
There is nothing more terrifying than the first bite into a moon cake.
Really. You don't know if you're going to get something delicious and fruity or something horrifying and unidentifiable. I call it "moon cake roulette"…
So far my luck has been decent. I've only needed to spit out a few bites. Thankfully my students realize that foreigners are partial to the more non-traditional flavors (think fruit and chocolate) as opposed to some of the fermented bean paste and unidentifiable substance filled cakes.
I have about 12 cakes left to try. Wish me luck.
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