Mid-Autumn Festival 過中秋

Last weekend was Mid-autumn Festival 中秋節 (or "Moon Festival") holiday. What is this Festival for? I'll give you a liitle background at the end of this posting.

In spite of the fact that Tim was out of town, Squarky and I managed to make the best out of this beautiful holiday.

"Mom, where are you going?" "Monster, you stay home and be good. Mommy is going to Yuyuan Garden (豫園)."


"Whaa.......aaat? It's not fair. I don't like this idea..."


The Huangpu river (黃浦江) divides Shanghai into west area (浦西 "Puxi") and east area (浦東 "Pudong"). Puxi was developed ealier and it is Shanghai's cultural, populational and commercial center. Pudong was much later developed in 1990 and was designated as the center of finance and economy of Shanghai. We live in Pudong. The ways we go across river to the Puxi side are either by car, by Metro or by ferry. Today, I decided to take ferry. The picture shows the entry of the ferry. The red colored sign on the wall is one of the funny propaganda signs going crazily around the city. In earlier time, these signs were primarily promoting for the Olympic and now they are all about the World Expo coming to Shanghai in 2010 . This one says: "Discerning honor and dishonor, behaving civilized, preparing for World Expo"(知榮辱, 講文明, 迎世博).


Our air-conditioned ferry was coming to get us. The ticket is RMB2 - half of the RMB4 Metro ticket.


When our ferry crossing the river, my camera caught the other ferry which is non-air-conditioned and costs RMB1.5.


The multimillion dollar condominiums and super skycrapers on Pudong side.


The ferry arrives on the Jingling East Road ferry stop (金陵東路站) on the Bund (外灘). I then strolled toward Yuyuan Garden. It takes about 15 minutes. On the way, I saw this street vendor selling freshly sliced fruit on the stick which is commonly seen on the street around the city. I always feel temptated to buy one (who would say no to a big piece of jucy freshly cut watermelon on such steaming day?). But, I never dare to try - sorry, the hygiene standard is a little bit "offbeat" to me .


After walking through this Gucheng Park (古城公園), Yuyuan Garden would be right in front of your eyes! But wait a second, did I see someone in PJ hanging out during this bright daytime? Yes, this is for real! PJ-fashion is very Shanghai-ish. The lady on the left in the picture was not crazy. She was just doing what the locals do - wearing PJ as a normal street outfit. I don't know how long it will take until I get used to seeing this. Tim has suggested that we should try this once for fun before we leave Shanghai. Hahaha!


I've been to Yuyuan Garden many times. So I decided to explore some of the small alleys around today. This is a easy way to be closer to the pace of the locals' daily life - outdoor sewing/mending stall and barber shop, people only wore underwear washing their hair in the sink in front of their house, and, of course, I didn't miss the free PJ-fashion show in the neighborhoods....these local neighborhoods were fun to see!

In spite of skyscrapers mushrooming everywhere and that China has been working hard to build/ rebuild everything new, I somehow feel the chaotic old Shanghai breathes out more its own charisma and is more real. I don't say that I prefer the old Shanghai than the new one. I enjoy both of them. It's just that the old world seems to be more genuine and humorous.

Here we are, the Yuyuan Garden (豫園)/ Chenghuang Temple 城隍廟(Old Town area) and Shanghai Old street(上海老街). This area is one of the top, must-see tourist attractions in Shanghai. This area retains old traditional Chinese feel which is speedily disappearing under the shadow of Shanghai's modernizationa. More about Yuyuan Garden, you can read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuyuan_Garden.


The picture shows what I had for my lunch - a steamed veggie-pork bun (菜肉大包), a tofu glass noodle (green bean noodle) soup (油豆腐細粉) and braised sliced beef shank (滷牛腱).

Here is where I had lunch - my number one favorite light Chinese meal place - Ding Tai Fung (鼎泰豐). Talking about this awsome place, Ding Tai Fung, my heart would be filled with pride because it is a Taiwanese-owned restaurant that became so successful that the New York Times rated it as one of the top ten gourmet restaurant in the world. The founder Mr. Yang was born in China in the year of 1927. He fled to Taiwan in the year of 1948 to leave the Civil-War-torn China. Reading its legend, I realized that the story was part of sad modern Chinese history and the food speaks for long-lasting beautiful Chinese culture beyond politcs and human-errors. I like the way that Ding Tai Fung has refined and sublimed the type of Chinese food it serves. And I feel this is the direction that Chinese culture should strive to go toward in modern era. Japan is a good example. Many parts of Japanese culture were originally influenced by ancient Chinese culture. However, Japan has been continuing to refine their culture through generations. In the process, they brought out the best essence of Japanese culture, their own cultural identify gradually surfaced to show the way. It has led its culture to where it is today - well loved, honored and preserved by Japanese people. Anyway, more about Ding Tai Fung, you can read http://www.dintaifung.com.tw/en/index.asp

I want to show you something nteresting. You can see a a religious wall-mounted shrine in the above right picture. Many Taiwanese business like to put a shrine similar to that in their business place (like restaurant or even luxury hotels) and use it to worship "Guan Yu" or "Duke Guan (關羽或關公). Guan Yu who was believed to be born around 160AD was a General in the late Eastern Han dynasty and Three Kingdoms era of ancient China. His real-life character was a little bit controversial. However. he was widely fictionalized as a valiant steadfast character in ancient Chinese literature and folk tales. Because of that, many people worship him, especially business people, because they believe that Guan Yu can protect them and make their business prosperous. Something special about him is that he holds status in Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism and is jointly worshipped by these three major religions in Chinese culture. This makes me think of anohter comparison character - Abraham. Abraham appeared in Jewish, Christain and Muslim. He was regarded as a holy patriarchal role in all these three religions.

Before heading home, I hit a dessert place called "Honeymoon Dessert" (香港滿記甜品) to enjoy some Hong Kong style dessert. I had soy bean milk jelly(pudding) with mango puree and mango (芒果豆腐花). This kind of Asian dessert is something I missed a lot when I was in the US.

There was another PJ fashion show I was able to catch before I headed home.

Moon Festival falls on August 15th of the Chinese Lunar Calendar (the Farmer's calendar). This Festival originated from ancient China dated back 3000 years ago. Its tradition and custom has spread to several countries/ cultures in Asia. Many of these areas has made it as a public holiday like what China and Taiwan did. Moon Festival is also the second most important holiday in Chinese Calendar (the number one of course is the Chinese New Year) in China (and also in Taiwan). On this day, families traditionally get together to eat moon cake and pomelos outside under the moon and enjoy bright, harvest full moon. Same as Chinese New Year, Moon Festival is the time for family reunion. There is a Chinese proverb says :月圓人團圓 (it means :Family reunite when full moon). The round shape of the full moon symbolize "reunion". Pomelo is a fruit similar to grapefruit but it's much larger. Pomelo is harvest during the Moon festival time. As a kid, I remembered we liked to put the peeled pemelos' rind on top of our head as a hat for fun. You can see how pomelo looks like here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomelo.