About a Fairy Tale

Jan. - Mar. 1996

Fairy Tales

In my country, most festivals are based on the Chinese lunar calendar.  The lunar calendar, born in the old agricultural society, is closely related to the planting and harvest seasons.  The Moon or Mid-Autun Festival is on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month.  In this festival, there is a fairy tale.

   The Moon Festival can be traced back to the legend of Hou Yih.  He is a warrior.  As for the time, it was about 2,000 BC.  One day, ten suns suddenly appeared in the heavens and the weather became very hot day-by-day.  How Yih shot the nine additional suns from the sky.  The Goddess of the Western Heaven gave him a pill with the elixir of immortality.  The pill is the same as medicine.  When you eat it, you will not die forever.

   At the time, How Yih's wife was named Chang-O.  She was a beautiful goddess, too.  Because she wanted to keep her beauty, she soon found the hidden pill and quickly swallowed it.  After that, she was flown to the moon alone.  That day was a full moon.  So her beauty just is at its most radiant on the day of the Moon Festival.

   The festival is a public holiday for family reunions, enjoying moonlight, eating moon cakes, and listening to this fairy tale from our parents, because we still believe there is a beautiful legend in the moon.  We hope she can see that our lives are happy, rather than stay alone on the moon.  However, we all have to die someday.

   -Becky