The Mid-Autumn Festival, or the Moon Festival, is the day that the moon is apparently its closest to Earth and on this night the moon is supposed to appear at its largest and brightest. This year the Festival falls on 21 September. In celebration, Chinese people across the Earth buy, give and consume the moon's weight in special pastries called moon cakes.

Traditional moon cakes are round, flaky pastry creations. They are filled with various tasty sweet and savory fillings, like fruit preserves, red beans, or meat and in the centre of all this is a round boiled egg yolk, which represents the full moon. I have to wonder what happens to all the egg whites.

The night is spent having a barbecue with friends and family, so that everyone can be outside and gaze adoringly at the looming full moon. The news broadcasts the first views of the moon so that those unable to get outside can still marvel over a cup of tea and a mouthful of moon cake.

All this fuss over the moon makes me realize how little attention we pay to the moon in the West. The moon is merely something that somebody once stepped on and left an American flag, which fortunately we can't see from Earth. And Chinese across the world lay first claim to the moon, anyway. Apparently, a few hundred years ago, a disenchanted Chinese wife decided to leave her husband, who she felt did not love her as she expected, and being unable to get a divorce in that age, she flew to the moon, where she lived out her days, somehow. Her husband would gaze longingly at the moon, hoping for a glimpse of his wife, but being unable, or merely more sensible, he did not fly there to join her.

So you see, Neil What's-his-name, was not the first person to take a giant leap.

20 September 2002

Dion Marc Delport

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