Mid Autumn Festival

 

 

 

Shop selling lanterns

One of the big festivals in Vietnam is the mid Autumn festival. This took place on 30th September this year. Its a Chinese holiday and quite important to Vietnamese people.

 

There is quite a big build up to the event (about a month) and they sell things called 'mooncakes' all over this time. There quite expensive and not very tasty. Saying not very tasty is a bit of an understatement because the ones I had were nasty. They put anything into them, meat, veg, egg, cake mix and other unidentifiable flavours. I had one which was ok and taste like a cake until I got to the middle where I bit into an egg.

 

 

The reason for the event is explained below courtesy of wikipedia:-

 

'The Vietnamese version of the holiday recounts the legend of Cuội, whose wife accidentally urinated on a sacred banyan tree. Soon after desecrating the tree, Cuội sat on one of the tree branches and the sacred tree began to grow and continued until it finally reached the moon, leaving him stranded there. Every year, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, children light lanterns and participate in a procession to show Cuội the way back to Earth.'.

 

Kids with lanterns going down the street.

 

The good thing about this event is the lanterns. They are pretty cool. I bought some where where two of the characters from the TV programme 'mokey magic' from back in the 70s, there pretty cool. They are made of paper and come with candles. I lit one (pigsy) and it caught on fire but managed to blow it out before it took my bedroom with it. They shall be for decorative purposes only from now on.

 

 

 

 

Busy traffic

 

I went on a cruise around the streets to China town with a friend, the roads were very busy and I've got some great video footage for a later blog. We saw lots of lanterns and some street processions (see the video). One thing is the Vietnamese know how to celebrate. It was a great experience and a great evening.