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Moon Cake Festival
There are many legends about this festival, but one in particular is singled out for its charm. A Taoist priest boasted that he could take his Tang emperor to the moon palace, then threw his walking stick into the sky. It turned into a bridge and they both went to the moon palace, where they spent many joyous years, and on their return the people celebrated by making round cakes to signify this lunar journey.
Another oddity of the eastern provinces is Moon Cake Gambling, a game invented by a former Fujian pirate-cum-patriot to keep his buccaneers from being homesick. Every mid-autumn festival, a game of dice is played in a large porcelain bowl to compete for moon cakes. The prizes range from tiny cookies to large moon cakes, the different sizes representing the official positions won in the imperial examinations. While few people take this history seriously, they enjoy going through the motions of the game, though fruits, wine and other foods are often awarded as prizes, rather than moon cakes.
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