Last weekend many parts of Singapore made an event to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival. First I found it strange since here in Singapore we don’t have such that season. But apparently it’s Chinese tradition to celebrate harvesting time in the 15th day of the 8th moon of Chinese lunar month, around the time of the autumn equinox. In the Western calendar, the day of the festival usually occurred sometime between the second week of September and the second week of October. This year it falls on 3rd October.
This is a day to worship the moon god. This festival signs that the year’s hard work in the fields had been finished, with fruits, vegetables and grain had been harvested by this time and food was abundant. Chinese people use this opportunity to express their gratitude to heaven for the blessings they have enjoyed over the past year. One of special foods for this festival is moon cakes.
Thanks to omy for inviting me (again) to explore more about this festival and Chinese culture in general in Hua Song Museum, inside Haw Par Villa. I think it is the best place to celebrate this festival. The event includes mooncake tasting, calligraphy, free dinner and goodie bags, walking by the light of lantern, and a tour of the Museum.
Hua Song means ‘In Praise of Chinese’, it is a museum about Chinese community. It shows statues, posters, and descriptions about their jobs in the past, their women, their education, their festivals, their kitchen and foods.
It shows also how they went around the world to seek a better life. There were 2 big migrations in the past, first was on 14th-16th century where China people went to Nanyang, or now we call it as Southeast Asia. In this museum we can find also the history of Lee Kuan Yew’s ancestors emigrated from Dapu. The second one was on 19th century when they migrated to America, working on railway track project or mining.
I like this phrase:
Don’t you agree?