Mid-Autumn Festival for Adults

Mooncakes plated with gold costing millions; mooncakes filled with bird’s nest and shark fin; mooncakes shaped like flying dragons costing several hundred USD… What is going on? It seems that a part of society is in a materialistic race, where the symbolism of mooncakes does not represent the reunion and warmth of family love, but only shows the desire to leave a superior mark with a luxurious gift to seek specific benefits. Mid-Autumn Festival - seems familiar but is so strange!

Eastern people believe that there is a connection between real life and the universe, with the moon. Full moon or crescent moon, joy or sadness, reunion or separation... can all be predicted from the shape of the moon. On the full moon day of the eighth lunar month, the moon is roundest and brightest, so people choose it as the day to celebrate the moon, called the Mid-Autumn Festival. The full moon illuminates the world, so it is dressed in the symbol of reunion. Generation after generation, the Mid-Autumn Festival imprints in the mind of each person the image and desire to reunite and gather with family. When mentioning the Mid-Autumn Festival, we think of the whole family sitting down to eat moon cakes, watch the moon; children carrying lanterns, dancing lions, breaking cakes...

But now, that scene that seemed to have remained unchanged for centuries has faded a lot. How many families still keep the old customs? The more social life develops, the more people think of festivals and ceremonies to meet each other and have fun, so the Mid-Autumn Festival gradually sinks into countless occasions of fun. Children do not need to wait until the Mid-Autumn Festival to eat delicious cakes or buy new toys, so the excitement is not much left. And people say that the Mid-Autumn Festival is no longer just for children, but is truly for adults. Many adults are very afraid when the Mid-Autumn Festival comes, because the Mid-Autumn Festival comes, meaning that their wallets are empty because of gifts, their minds are tired because of running around, looking back and forth, waiting anxiously for the gifts to be handed out smoothly.

“Mid-Autumn Festival is a Children’s Festival/ Why do adults spend so much?” - every Mid-Autumn Festival, this satirical poem resounds. The biggest spending is probably on luxury mooncake boxes that “carry” the role of “a solemn ceremony of deep affection”. Cheap and common cakes are rarely bought as gifts, they must be unique, rare, famous brand cakes that are hard to buy, and have sky-high prices!

Every year, newspapers often publish information about people lining up in front of famous moon cake shops in Hanoi, Hai Phong, etc. from 1am, to buy 1-2 boxes of cakes. There are cases where families of 5-7 members bring mats to sit and wait to buy cakes. A new profession has emerged: lining up to buy moon cakes, buying on demand to take the difference in cost or buying and then reselling at double or triple the price. How many people in that long line to buy cakes are buying them for their families to eat, or giving them to their parents, relatives, or siblings? Or are most of them buying them just as gifts?

Moon cakes seem to be narrowing down to their gift function. There may be more than just cakes in the box; giving Mid-Autumn gifts may not mean wishing each other peace and reunion, but rather conveying bare wishes. In many countries, moon cakes are also included in the list of “festival corruption”, when businesses use this expensive gift to please officials. At times and in some places, the Mid-Autumn Festival for adults is a race for money and material things; under the moonlight are fair and unfair exchanges of benefits. Somewhere, the Mid-Autumn Festival is no longer a symbol but has become tangible objects, containing tangible ambitions.

Everyone understands that one or more gifts may not mean closeness or strength in a relationship; however, people always hope that a Mid-Autumn Festival gift will help strengthen that relationship. Like an endless loop, adults fear Mid-Autumn Festival but wait for Mid-Autumn Festival, using Mid-Autumn Festival as an excuse to approach, to be close, to seek benefits... In this modern consumer society, it seems that everything is multifunctional, even moon cakes. But being used to being multifunctional, now wanting to return to simple things is difficult...