Moon Cake

If you were in Taiwan this past weekend, you would have had the opportunity to experience the Moon Festival. It comes but once a year and is generally regarded as one of the more important/celebrated holidays here in Taiwan. The Moon Festival (Better known as the Mid-Autumn Festival) is the time of year (According to the lunar calendar, mind you) that celebrates the peak time for gathering the summer’s harvest and celebrating because everybody traditionally had an abundance of crops and other things to make them happy.

General requirements for the moon festival are: (1) Fireworks; (2) Moon Cake; and (3) Cancer. I’ll explain these in the order listed.

First, you’ll need some fireworks. These can be picked up anywhere – at the grocery store, at many roadside stands, at smaller specialty stores. They’re cheap, they’re loud, and everybody will buy them and shoot them at each other. For the past four days I’ve had to listen to them going off outside, seemingly right outside my window, and then listening to people scream in joy (or pain?) at what just transpired. Load up on some cheap fireworks and don’t worry about the safety precautions on the label.

Next, you’ll need moon cake. If you’ve never had moon cake, you’re in for a real treat. Despite what you may infer from the name, these aren’t “cake” in the birthday cake sense of the word. It’s more like a small, dense biscuit with suprise filling. If you can’t read Chinese, you don’t know what you’re going to get. The outer “cake” layer is roughly 1-2 centimeters thick and the filling takes up the rest. Here are some excellent pictures of moon cake:

Some of these are quite tasty and some are what you may call “an acquired taste.” Common fillings include several kinds of fruit and sometimes salted duck eggs. My recommendation: Try them at least once. People go to great lengths to get good moon cakes and give them as gifts. Many bakeries stop baking everything else for the week and focus only on moon cakes (a lesson I learned just before the weekend when I went to go get some croissants and other pastries for breakfast). There are many stores that focus solely on moon cakes: one store in Kaohsiung, for example, has been making moon cakes for 70 years and is quite famous. So, once you have your fireworks firmly in hand, head off to the moon cake store and stock up. Buy some presents for friends, even; they really will appreciate it.

Next, you’ll need to get cancer. The easiest way to do this is to partake in another Moon Festival tradition: Grilling. You’ll want to go to a Grill Restaurant or buy your own charcoal, light it up, and inhale as many fumes as you can. You’ll get bonus points for cooking your food over said charcoal and then consuming, as per normal.

Being American, I’m no stranger to grilling. I love grilling, and it’s generally considered very safe in America. In Taiwan, however, the pollution is out of control and the charcoal itself is, unfortunately, quite polluted. I’m not sure where the problem got started, but I’m 100% positive that the amount of scooters and cars on the road isn’t helping anything (in all my time here in Taiwan, I’ve seen many many many cars – traffic is unavoidable. Not once, however, have I seen a hybrid car or anything that doesn’t run on gasoline. In fact, I haven’t seen a gas station that offered anything other than 92, 95, and 98 Octane).

Compounding the problem is air conditioning. You see, it’s very hot in Taiwan. This requires that everyone buy fans and air conditioners. The Air conditioners use freon, a substance which is widely known as a dangerous CFC (chlorofluorocarbon) – Thanks DuPont! – and has no problem polluting the environment with the best of them. Constant running of these air conditioners creates more pollutants in the air, which generally only makes Taiwan hotter, which requires that people… well, you get the picture.

Apropos of all this pollution, all the rain inTaiwan is acid rain (or so I’ve been told). Rarely will you see people go outside in the rain without an umbrella, for fear that all their hair will fall out. This acid rain, of course, falls onto the ground and into the soil and ends up polluting most other things, which brings us back to the charcoal we’ll need to celebrate the Moon Festival properly.

I make light of this situation, but let me be clear: most Taiwanese already know the charcoal is very unhealthy. This is why most people only go the grills occasionally or only during the moon festival. Once a year isn’t too harmful. Moreover, it’s obviously not a 100% guarantee that you will get cancer or any other type of sickness just because you celebrated in style. If you have the opportunity to hang out with friends, BBQ up some meats and veggies, shoot off some fireworks and stuff yourself silly with salted duck egg moon cake, then by all means I highly recommend you partake. The moon festival comes but once a year and you will be a richer person for celebrating it authentically.