"I'm being followed by a moonshadow"

Tuesday night is a full moon. That means it's time for the Tet Trung Thu or the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. This festival is an ancient festival revolving around children. It dates back 15,000 - 20,000 years ago in Southeast Asia and is said that originally it came about as a way for parents to make up for lost time with their children after the harvest season. When the harvest was complete parents were anxious to spend time with their children and do something special with them as well as celebrate the harvest after spending so much time working hard and being away from the family. It was held under the full moon, which represents fullness and prosperity of life. It's a combination of Halloween and Thanksgiving. Children parade on the streets while singing and carrying colorful lanterns of different sizes. Some of the popular shapes include fish, stars, butterflies and a lantern that spins when a candle is inserted, representing the earth circling the sun. Dances are also traditional and include the dragon dance and the flower dance. On the stage below Terry and Eileen's apartment we watched a dragon dance and other characters on stage with an audience of children under a huge umbrella canopy protecting them from the rain.

It is customary to give Banh Trung Thu, boxes of moon cakes, which are traditionally very rich - - our version would be like a fruit cake. The cakes are filled with lotus seeds, ground beans and orange peels and have a bright duck egg yoke in the center to represent the moon. The one Eileen gave to me had multiple duck eggs inside (very good luck!) as well as pork and other meats. It's okay, not horrible, not great. It's sweet but has some savoury flavors as well. It's packaged really prettily and everyone gives them to people close to them. I saw many motorbikes with the decorative moon cake bags hanging from them today! And there are lanterns everywhere - - it's so beautiful!!

At Acoustic the music stopped and lanterns with candles were passed out to everyone. The candles are placed inside the paper (!) lanterns and lit (!). Then everyone in the bar sang a cute little song in Vietnamese; there was a lot of laughter going on and people were coming up to the mic to say something to the crowd and the crowd would loudly react. Again, I have it on my moving camera so it will be interesting to see it again. The temperature in the place went up by about 20 degrees when the candles were lit so we headed toward the exit (the single exit!!!) as fast as we could. Candles, paper lanterns, one exit - - a recipe for catastrophe. But it was so beautiful. Here's pretty Eileen holding her pretty lantern.