By Piper Rutherford | Staff Writer
The Chinese Students and Scholars Association’s celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival attracted a long line of students waiting to take part in moon cake making, lantern assembling and Chinese calligraphy.
President of CSSA, Kunming, China, junior Kevin Wang said he was not expecting the turnout to exceed 100 people as quickly as it did.
“We wanted our first meeting of the year to celebrate the third-most important holiday in Chinese culture, which is the Mid-Autumn Festival,” Wang said. “This is a time for family and friends to gather and gaze at the moon together — even if they are miles apart —and then enjoy some delicious moon cakes afterwards.”
Beijing sophomore Yuheng Lin told the mythological tale of husband and wife, Hou Yi and Chang’e.
“The story follows the archer, Hou Yi, who shot down nine of the 10 suns that were responsible for bringing famine to the earth and scorching the land,” Lin said. “And as his reward, the King of the West gifted him a beautiful wife, Chang’e, along with the elixir of immortality.”
However, this is when the antagonist, Peng Meng, is introduced in the story, as he attempts to steal the elixir from Chang’e, Lin said.
“In order to protect the elixir from Peng Meng, Chang’e was forced to consume it herself before she ascended to the moon,” Lin said. “This left Hou Yi heartbroken, so every year on the 15th day of the eighth month of the calendar year, Hou Yi is said to make moon cakes with glaze to commemorate Chang’e, even though they are separated across the galaxy.”
Students in attendance at the celebration got to enjoy moon cakes made by Ping Liu, who Lin said they refer to as CSSA’s “church mom.”
When walking through the process of assembling a moon cake, Liu said after preparing the red bean filling and skin of the moon cake separately — which can be consumed cold — the paste filling is ready to be wrapped.
“The decorative mold is the final touch on the moon cake after covering the filling in the casing,” Liu said. “It is more for appearance to help the finished product when we use the mold to press the outer skin and create a pattern.”
At another station during the festival, students learned how to write Chinese calligraphy.
Yanghe Yan, a first year Ph.D. student from Shanghai explained how Chinese calligraphy differs from English print writing.
“Writing in calligraphy is almost like painting with a brush,” Yan said. “A good way to think about it is that while English writing is very one-dimensional and lacking in emotion, Chinese characters are intentional and convey a lot of individual personality, especially in how the characters are written from both top to bottom and right to left, giving them a two-dimensional aspect.”
Students who tried their hand at calligraphy took part in a DIY lantern craft, which included a plastic water bottle wrapped in lantern paper with red strings and LED lights at the bottom of the bottle, that they then got to take home with them at the end of the night.
