Taiwan Today

Before astronauts from the West proved the moon was a safe place to stroll and even putt golf balls, its fancied characters were numerous. Westerners once saw green cheese in its crust, Mar­tians in its craters, and a benevolent old fellow's face in its profile. For many Chi­nese, however, the coming of the space age has not put a full period to the mysti­cism surrounding the moon. In its radiance is still seen a beautiful woman from an ancient court, the billowy sleeves of her concubine's finery floating in the breeze. Or for the children, a white rabbit husking rice under a willow tree can be still discerned on its face.

As a supernatural force, the moon is said, in the West, to provoke both romance and lunacy. Eastern popular belief also attributes special powers to the moon. One superstition has it that pointing at the moon will cause one's ears to fall off. In both cultures, the moon can direct forces of evil. The full moon in China during the Ghost Festival period draws homeless ghosts from below to partake of the earth's hospitality for a short period. At other times of the year, the full moon exactly coincides with Chinese holidays, since the Chinese calendar is based on lunar cycles.

In the poetry of both East and West, the moon often surfaces as a recipient of man's forlorn laments. This cold stellar jewel, once hanging beyond man's reach, is both an unsympathetic audience to (and an intangible object of) human longing. A Tang Dynasty poet, Li Po, learned a fatal lesson when he tried to "reach for the moon." As well known for his imaginative verse as for his soli­tary drinking bouts with the moon, the poet met a watery death after toasting too many cups to his unblinking companion; he sought to physically capture its re­flection on the river's surface, and drowned.

From nearly any earthly vantage point, autumn's harvest moon is a symbol of bounty and an announcement of fiesta. In Taiwan, on the 15th day of the 8th moon of the lunar year, the Mid­-Autumn Festival is celebrated with family gatherings, moon gazing, and con­sumption of an annual savory, the "moon cake." Round like the full moon and stuffed with minced meats or fruit and nut fillings, the cakes are a symbol of unity. According to tradition, a cake is divided between family members and eaten together; in form and in usage, the cake represents reunion. Perhaps stemming from customs of bygone days when farflung children returned to the family farm to help harvest the crop, when til­lers greeted the autumn as respite from a summer's toil, and when the countryside rejoiced in the cornucopia of full stock-houses, the Mid-Autumn Festival re­ mains today a time of relaxation and family warmth.

Preparations for the holiday center on the island's bakeries. Throughout September-the Roman calendar's equivalent of the 8th lunar month-the Chinese people buy moon cakes for their families, or to send to friends and relatives as gifts. To witness Taipei's early holiday preparations, one need only visit a local bakery when the heavy, round little moon cakes (they actually resemble small pies) have begun to replace egg cakes and other pastries on store shelves. Of particular note is the Pu-I bakery on Taipei's Shin Sheng South Road, where an exceptional fidelity to traditional form and quality has established proprietress Wang's reputation.

The three story bakery was founded over 40 years ago in Hangkow, Hubeh Province, and later was moved to Taiwan. In September, it becomes a virtual moon-cake factory, its spacious kitchens filled with starchily uniformed bakers kneading sweet dough and mixing rich filling combinations. Among the 13-odd varieties of fillings, Mrs. Wang reports, the sweet prune is the most popular. With pineapple, coconut, five-nut, egg yolk, and green bean fillings as additional choices, the array is broad enough to suit any palate. And for those with saltier tastebuds, minced meat and sesame seed fillings are also available.

With a basic crew of thirty, the Pu-I bakery churns out one to two thousand moon cakes a day. However, the work force will be doubled 10 days prior to the holiday in order to keep pace with the rocketing demand. The little pies are knocked out of wooden molds, brushed with egg, and popped into an oven where the characters imprinted on the crusts of some puff into three dimensional form.

The smaller cakes, which weigh in al 150 to 200 gms. apiece and are stamped with the name of the filling, are of two types: the Canton variety with a buttery thick crust, and the Suchow type, which is wrapped in layers of flaky pastry and stamped with red food coloring.

Traditionally, each Chinese region had its particular type, but these two are most popular on the island today. Generally speaking, northerners prefer the Canton type, and southerns the Suchow type. Regardless of preferences, all the moon cakes sell like hot cakes. A steady flow of customers quickly relieves the bakery shelves of their savory burdens and carts each piece of moon-treasure back home.

The form of Chang-a, the pretty lady exiled to the palace on the moon, appears on the surfaces of the largest moon cakes. Stuffed with 800 grams of filling and called a "Whole Family Fortune", such big cakes are destined for extra large or exuberent broods. It is fitting that Chang-a be repatriated on a moon cake-a kind of recognition of her sacri­fice for the sake of the Chinese people. As legend has it, she rescued her countrymen from eternal subjection to tyranny by stealing the Emperor's elixir. Eating the life-giving pill herself, she in­stantly floated to the moon, thereby bringing the world hope for a better future and adding her feminine grace to the moon's soft light.

In a later chapter of history, the moon cake reportedly became a symbol of the unity of the Han people, towards the end of the Yuan Dynasty (1280-1368) helping to bring an end to the harsh rule of the Mongol conquerors.

The Story of the Moon Cake relates that Han people of the time were suffer­ing terribly under the high tax levies and unequal treatment of the Tartar regime. In the small town of Chung-I, villagers who had their fill of poverty and degrada­tion reacted with outrage to desecration of their Buddhist shrines and family prop­erty. A minor uprising occurred which would have met with brutal reprisal­ death and the then current punishment of cutting out an offender's tongue- if the entire Han people had not risen in revolt.

How did the oppressed Han people coordinate such a revolution? They devised the ingenious stragem of using moon cakes as innocent couriers, over­ coming the problems of distance and surveillance. Throughout the land as preparations for the Mid-Autumn Festival pro­ceeded, revolutionary messages were baked into moon cakes: "On the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival, overthrow the Tartars!" Subsequently, the Han people regained control of their land within a few months. Thus, in the pages of Chinese history, so fraught with invasion, conquest, and submission to tyrannical reign, the moon cake stands as a symbol of national unity.

In modern Taiwan, the Mid-Autumn Festival is a light-hearted holiday, celebrated under autumn's fine skies-a day of relaxation and family socializing. It is also a day when children, hearing again all the old stories, come closer to an ancient heritage.