Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Autumn Festival

Today was the Mid-Autumn Festival, a big holiday in China.  It is typically celebrated by the giving of "Moon Cakes", small breaded cakes that can have any number of surprises inside from meats, to fruits to bean paste.  You never know until  you bite into one!

Sue went to Sophie's school today where they had the parents help the kids make Moon Cakes.  Sophie got dressed in her finery to celebrate the day!

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Having a drink and getting ready to make moon cakes!

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First the teacher demonstrated how to make the cakes.  Put some bean paste in the bowl, and some kind of flour mixture around it, then press it down into a mold to give it that distinctive moon-cake shape (sort of round with lots of little ridges on it).

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A bird's eye view of Sophie and her friends doing their thing...

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Now carefully press it into the mold...

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Look Mom! My very own Moon Cake filled with sweet bean paste! Yummy!

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Sue went to the park again to visit her friends and give them some Moon Cakes, and receive some, too! 

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We have seen huge lanterns being lit that float way up into the sky - very pretty! 

Today was day 2 of our new ayi and a 2nd delicious dinner and a clean apartment were nice to come home to today!   We love having her around! It gave Sue a chance to go to her private Mandarin lesson today and she learned a lot!  She is practicing tonight and giving it a good effort!

Unfortunately, today her bicycle was stolen.  She bought a little rinky-dink lock that I scoffed at but she insisted it was good enough.  The lock was very easy to operate but not much of a deterrent.  I guess it's back to the market to get another bike!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry your bike was stolen Sue, but hopefully you will get another one really soon. I'm happy to hear that your auntie is a good cook and cleaner...it sounds like that will be a win win for all of you. love mom