Before I go on, what's mid-autumn festival? According to Wikipedia, it's a "harvest festival", but according to the people in my Facebook feed, it's all about family, friends and food. It's also connected to a story about a woman who became immortal and went to the moon, which I don't know much about because when I was in Hong Kong, it was all about the food. You also eat mooncakes, and watch the moon, which is full on mid-autumn festival.
Now moon cakes are very special. They look very appetizing, nice and golden-coloured:
Then you take a bite, and in the sweet paste you taste something salty. Inside them, you see, is usually a sweet paste - and a duck's egg.
It's an acquired taste, one I haven't acquired yet, but still I was excited at the thought of mooncakes. Not because I thought it'd taste amazing, but just because it'd be nice to do something Chinese, feeling like I was doing it with all my friends abroad who were enjoying their mooncakes.
When the teacher came in, I somehow managed to squeeze out a "will we eat mooncakes today?" in Chinese for her. I had to think about it for a while before I found the right words. She said we would, and I high-fived Red Cross, whom I had told about the festival during lunch and thought mooncakes sounded great (I hadn't told her what was in them, maybe that's why?). But that wasn't all! We were not only eating mooncakes, but also making spring rolls! Cheers from the class! Before we could do that however, we had to sort out the China class' student council representative. Everybody was keen to get started, so we quickly passed a paper around with all the names written on it so people could vote on it. Somehow I won, probably because I fixed the paper with names and they figured, hey, she can fix this voting, she can probably do whatever a student council rep does.
We scurried down to the kitchen and divided into groups, and started chopping vegetables and frying meat. I got to fry the assembled spring rolls for my group, which consisted of me, Red Cross, Strong Handshake and a Very Bendy girl. I even had to do it with chopsticks, since doing it with anything else was impossible. I don't really like eating spring rolls with chopsticks, they're too smooth and hard so it's tough for me to get a grip, but I did my best. I was pretty full after the lesson, and could only eat a little bit of the dinner, even though it was delicious - meat, rice and sauce!
Since it's mid-autumn festival and all, I'd kind of like to watch the moon, but I live in Bergen so it's raining. I guess I'll just go to bed instead!
19.09.2013
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