The history of this festival dates back over 3,000 years. Back then in Ancient China, people celebrate a bountiful harvest on this day, when the moon is believed to be the brightest.
Families gathered around for dinner, a sort of reunion, and after dinner, they sipped tea and enjoyed the moon-cakes. Moon-cakes are rich Chinese pastries filled with sweet bean paste, and lotus seed paste.
The traditional festival has been carried down, even though, in the city there is no harvest to celebrate. However, like most of the festivals passed down from the past, the moon-cake festival is now very commercialized. The original idea behind the celebration is lost.
Businesses cash in on this day – like in all other festive days, to make some money. Much effort and money are put into the design of the moon-cake containers, and marketing the moon-cakes. Moon-cakes now come in all sorts of flavours.
The moon-cake festival is not big in Singapore in that it is not celebrated by families. They are used as gifts to foster good relations. The young adults buy them for their parents and/or relatives to show respect. Good friends might buy some for each other. But generally, it is more commercial than festival related.
Moon-cakes are actually very unhealthy. They are very sweet, and not very good for people who have high cholesterol, high sugar, and high blood. But because they are so expensive and, not wanting to throw them up, people force themselves to eat them, although knowing that they shouldn’t.
Because of the ridiculous price of these moon-cakes, Singaporeans are flocking to their neighbours up North, Malaysia to buy moon-cakes. The current exchange is about three twenty Malaysian Ringgit to the Singapore dollar.
Nicely designed moon-cake containers.
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