The Lady in the Moon

Different cultures have different celebrations and I have discovered one I'd like to make a part of my life. The Chinese people celebrate Mid-Autumn Day. It is a day of the full moon. It is a day of the mooncakes (which are dense cakes which are given and received in abundance around this time of the year).

My favorite part of the holiday is the legend behind the lady in the moon. I have been trying to get the straight story from my students, and here is what I learned...

One day there was a beautiful woman and her husband. The husband had in his posession magical pills, which would enable him to live forever. The wife wanted to preserve her beauty for her husband and so she stole the pills from him and took them herself. But what she didn't know, was that the pills also had the power to make you fly. The consequences of her theft resulted in her flying up to the moon, where she lives to this day.

A Mid-Autumn Day tradition is to look up at the full moon and miss those you love.