Today we began the mid-Autumn festival. We have been given 3 days of holiday! Of course, we have to make up all missed lessons at the weekend so the whole point of holiday is somewhat defeated. Very cunning of China, that.
Last night we had another college-funded banquet, though couldn’t eat much for all the toasts and, of course, the moon cakes. Ah, moon cakes... We have been inundated with them but are struggling to find an adequate level of appreciation for them. There’s no way of telling what flavour they are before you’ve started eating one and we keep ending up with the really sweet fruit flavoured ones which aren’t very nice. Then there are the ones that taste like prunes.
Today, on the happiest of days, Moon Day itself, we met up with Taz, Jav’s brother, who works at the other college in Pingxiang. After traipsing round the city and trying, in vain, to find an open DVD store, we decided to seek out the fantastical ‘ice-cream moon cakes’ that dwell deep in the depths of Nanchang department store. After trying to work out exactly what was in said moon cakes, we bought one of each colour to try. Don’t they look pretty.
They were not pretty on the inside. Turns out one was chocolate-ish, one orange, one green tea and one a sort of yam flavour. And the ice cream was not so much ice cream as a sort of rice jelly. It was half hilarious and half distressing.
“It makes me sad”.
It made us all sad, Jav.
In a very bizarre and I suppose a coincidental way, the weather abruptly changed today. Rain, cool wind, temperatures in the low 20s. Something like an English summer. All the humidity has left the air and it almost feels cold. Clearly mid-Autumn day has magical powers. Moon powers.
