It’s Mid-Autumn Festival time
China’s second largest traditional holiday.
People travel back home to be with their family,
eat moon-cakes and just have a good time.
The festival is intrinsically linked the folk tale of Houyi
and the moon goddess Chang’e,
every Chinese person knows the legend.
The only problem though, everybody tells it differently.
Strap yourselves in,
this one is about to get complicated.
There are like 20 different legends regarding Chang’e and Houyi,
we going to focus on 2,
let’s call them the warrior story and the love story.
The warrior story is supposedly set around 2356 BC.
Houyi was a skilled archer and a member of King Yao’s Imperial guard.
One Day 9 ravens
inexplicably turned into suns scorching the earth,
drying crops and just generally making life uncomfortable for people.
The emperor commanded Hou Yi
to shoot down the fake suns with his magic bow and arrows.
The Queen Mother of the West,
who was on mount KunLun
was so impressed with this feat
that she commanded him to build her a Jade Palace
in return for a reward.
Upon completion
Hou Yi was awarded a pill of immortality
and was instructed to fast for 1 year before taking it.
He then took the pill and hid it in his roof.
One day while Houyi was out on a mission,
his wife Chang’e found the strange pill of unknown origin
and like any sensible person would do,
ate it.
But, at the same time Houyi returned home
and afraid of the consequences
Chang’e with her new powers
flew out the window and hid on the moon.
When she arrived on the moon
she threw up the pill and it turned into a jade rabbit
and Chang’e herself
transformed into a three legged toad.
According to this legend Chang’e
Chang’e and the jade rabbit are sill on the moon to this day
preparing a new pill in hopes of returning home.
The love story
follows most of the same beats as the beginning of the warrior story,
but Houyi was given an elixir rather than a pill
and chose not to drink it
as he didn’t want to be separated from his beloved Chang’e.
Then, on the now day of the Mid-Autumn Festival,
Houyi’s apprentice Fengmeng tried to steal the elixir.
In order to stop Fengmeng from becoming immortal,
Chang’e drank it herself
and began flying up into the sky.
Chang’e loved her husband so much
that she chose to live on the moon to be as close to him as possible.
When Houyi found out what had happened,
he prepared fruits and cakes as an offering to her.
Everyone was so moved by the events
that every year on the same day
Chinese people eat moon-cakes and round fruits
in tribute to Chang’e’s sacrifice.
So like I said there are many variations of this legend,
but which one is the real origin story?
Well, none of them!
The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival
first began around the time of the Song Dynasty
as combination of the post-harvest celebrations
and moon worship.
It was during the Northern Song Dynasty
that the 15th day of the 8th lunar month
was selected as mid-autumns day.
The character Houyi is derived from the archer god Yi.
The two characters are both extremely skilled bowmen,
and both shot out 9 suns over the earth,
though Yi’s story is more like a creation myth.
Over the course of time,
Yi and Houyi eventually became a single entity
confusing the origins of several Chinese myths.
The Jade rabbit from the story
was originally from a Buddhist legend,
where the rabbit sacrificed his own life
to feed a disguised Buddha
and was rewarded by being able to live on the moon.
This story became linked with moon worshipping and harvest festivals
and is now also deeply embedded
not only in the Chinese Mid-Autumn festival
but also the Korean and Japanese Chuseok and Tsukimi
Autumn Harvest festivals as well.
And finally Moon cakes
which you can watch me try on my new second channel,
seriously go check that out.
Mooncakes were originally used as offerings
during the moon worshiping festival,
and like most aspects of Chinese traditional holiday’s
they have become completely mixed up
and intertwined into one big mess.
But Just like Dragon boat festival,
confused origins don’t really matter,
the most important thing is ....
that I don’t have to go to work!
So thank you for watching another one of my videos,
if you would like to see more about the Mid-autumn festival
you can visit my new second channel WooKong’s World
where I try OREO mooncakes.
As always thank you so much for watching,
I’m WooKong and good bye.