Sunday, September 14, 2008

Dodging the mooncake bullet

Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival - the 15th day of the 8th (or is it the 9th??) month in the Chinese lunar calendar. Of course, the date of this holiday in the Western calendar migrates all over the month of September, and occasionally strays into early October. This year, for once, it's actually falling reasonably close to the Autumnal Equinox which it is supposed to mark (one can't help thinking that if the primary purpose of this calendar is, as it is with most calendars around the world, to chart the seasons accurately for the benefit of farmers, well, the Chinese calendar is a bit crappy).

As I recounted last year, a major element of this holiday is the giving (though not necessarily the eating) of huge numbers of the traditional 'sweet treats', mooncakes.

Since I no longer have any regular employment, I have been largely spared this ordeal of corporate gifting this year (last year I was inundated with the bloody things). However, one of my editing employers has been trying to fob some off on me for the past 10 days. I really didn't fancy committing myself to staying home for a half-day - or even perhaps a full day - to take delivery from a courier (although in fact I have been at home for most of the week, laid up with a terrible cold), so I just kind of ignored their last e-mail about it. I hope they won't be too offended.

This year, for the first time, the government here is giving days off work for a few of the traditional Chinese holidays (reallocating some of the former 'golden week' holiday that was given for Labour Day at the beginning of May); so, tomorrow is a holiday. It's a three-day weekend. Woo-hoo! (Of course, it doesn't really make any difference to me.)

Happy Mid-Autumn Day, everyone.

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