We have moon cakes!
We’ve given moon cakes and we’ve received moon cakes. With the Moon festival coming, these are on sale in every store. They range from a few Yuan for one piece to hundreds of Yuan for an elaborate box set. That’s still cheaper than in Seattle. There’s also a lot more variety. For example, in addition to red bean paste and lotus paste, you can also get chocolate here.
Interestingly, these box sets are like the Christmas gifts you pass around (for those of you with extended families). They’re as safe a gift as chocolate in the Western world; safer here than a bottle of wine or whisky for sure. That said, they pack a lot more calories than Godiva chocolate. Let’s say now that your cousin comes to visit, he brings moon cakes of course. A few days later, you go see an old friend, of course you bring her moon cakes, his’. As the foreigner, it made sense to me to offer some to the head of the family. Since he doesn’t eat sweets, half of them have already come back to us. We also got a set as a parting gift from an uncle.
While we won’t be in Beijing to celebrate the Moon Festival, we’ll be eating moon cakes in Japan for breakfast until then.