Sacrifices to the Moon

Last Thursday was the mid Autumn festival, and it's fair to say that I celebrated it rather well. The Mid Autumn festival dates back 3000 years to the Shang Dynasty; the Emperor and aristocrats would sacrifice fruit and mooncakes to the moon in the hope of a plentiful harvest the following year. By the time of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) everyone celebrated the mid autumn festival; they would eat together as a family under the stars. This particular element of the tradition has vanished as very few people in the cities have the outdoor space with which to do this. In the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) the Han were ruled by the Mongols. Starting an uprising was proving challenging, so the military counselor of the Han people’s army, Liu Bowen, told soldiers to put a note saying 'Uprising' into every mooncake and then sell them. The night of the Mid Autumn festival then saw a huge uprising. 

As the festival fell on a Thursday this year, everyone had Thursday, Friday and Saturday off but had to work/ go to school on Sunday. Bizarre I know.

That evening we had a big dinner, which was very tasty, but I don't touch the chicken feet. In my mind they're up there with the spines, tastes good sure but just thinking about the actual body part freaks me out. I find it weird that they don't treat beer as alcohol, they give it to Leo. Not just a sip either, a glass the same size as the rest of us. The grandad also brought out some strong alcohol, the kind of thing that when you smell it it burns the back of your throat. It was brown so not baijiu, however I didn't really want to try it, a smell was enough.

That night Evelina and I went and hit it up Beijing style. We headed to 'Smugglers bar' a fine establishment where you can get a bottle of beer for 10¥, or for the same price a fairly sizeable vodka and red bull. Needless to say everything got a bit crazy. We started to talk to these American guys and everything was very chilled just a group of foreigners discussing living in China until somehow the conversation turned to Abortion rights and then gun control. These guys were Republicans, so everything got very heated and disagreeable, however only one of them was a 'la la la I'm not listening la la la America is the best' kind of Republican. I just gave up, it was all getting very stressful, and one of them insulted the NHS! So I went and bought a round of shots but when I returned I made it clear that people could only drink them if they all accepted that every country had its faults and we should drop this debate and talk about something else. Just be friends! Crazy Republican guy actually decided to leave at this point, but everyone else drank my friendship shots. I think this is definitely how the UN should settle disputes, with a round of kamikazes. We then played dice, which was new.

I can't really remember the rules, but it was fun? Maybe... I can't remember... I made it home though safe and sound! I like to think of it as sacrificing my sobriety to the moon.