Monday September 2, 2019 LIFE

18

By Bi Mengying

E

very year, families throughout

China gather together to enjoy

some snacks and entertainment

under the light of the full moon for

the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is

on the 15th day of the eighth month

of the Chinese calendar. This year the

holiday falls on September 13, less

than two weeks away. While many

families throughout the country and

abroad celebrate the holiday in slightly

different ways, one of most common

and best-preserved tradition is devour-

ing delicious mooncakes containing

all manner of fillings. People often

give mooncakes to their family and

friends as gifts, while many compa-

nies in China hand out the festive

pastry to employees as well.

While the tradition of shangyue (Lit:

appreciating the moon) was practiced

by many Chinese during the full

moon of the eighth month – often

considered to be the brightest and

most beautiful full moon of the year

• in ancient times, the tradition didn’t
  become a fixed festival until the Tang
  Dynasty (618-907).
  Pastries similar to modern moon-
  cakes first appeared during the Song
  Dynasty (960-1127), but they were not
  exclusively enjoyed during the festival
  at first. As the round full moon
  symbolizes the reunion of families,
  the circular mooncakes, which are
  usually stuffed with sweetened bean
  paste, also became associated with the
  concept of reunion. Over the years,
  these tasty treats gradually became a
  staple of the festival and the tradition
  has been passed on till today.

Growing selection

There are various systems used

to classify mooncakes. You can or-

ganize them by place of origin,

the types of filling or whether

they are sweet or salty, you

name it.

“I have been eating

Daoxiangcun’s red and

white mooncakes for

over 60 years. Only

old Beijingers buy

these two types of

mooncakes now,”

said an elderly

customer at a Da-

oxiangcun shop,

a pastry chain

store in Beijing

that was first

established in

1895.

“We eat

Jiangsu-style

mooncakes

here. The

skin of the

mooncakes

are made up

of many crispy

layers. When-

ever you take a

bite, crumbs fall

everywhere,” said

Xue Cha, from Qi-

dong City in Jiangsu

Province.

Meanwhile, in Shanghai, xianrou

(Lit: fresh meat) mooncakes – with

their juicy meat filling and golden,

crispy skin – are the go-to pastry for

the festival. Shanghainese cannot

resist the good, old-fashioned scent of

xianrou mooncakes fresh out of the

oven.

“Even if you have to wait in long

lines to get some xianrou mooncakes,

you do it, since that’s what we eat

during the Mid-Autumn Festival,” said

Yuan Chao, who grew up in Shanghai.

In recent years, the already great

selection of mooncakes has become

increasingly diverse. Bingpi, or snow

skin, mooncakes originating from

Hong Kong have been gaining in favor

in the Chinese mainland. The non-

baked mooncake with fruit filling is

considered by many to be a healthier

alternative to traditional mooncakes

that are high in sugar and contain oily

fillings.

Even US ice cream maker Haagen-

Dazs has thrown its hat in the ring

with its ice cream mooncakes, which

debuted in the Chinese mainland in

1996. With flavors such as vanilla,
      strawberry cheesecake, chocolate, rum
      raisin and green tea, the company
      cleverly gives the festive traditional
      Chinese pastry a Western touch.
      With these mooncakes proving
      very popular among young
      consumers, the company
      has continued to

expand its menu. Recently, Haagen-

Dazs announced it will be selling fro-

zen yogurt mooncakes for this year’s

holiday. It has also invited Liu Haoran,

a popular Chinese actor, to promote

the mooncakes.

Going ‘nutty’

According to a report by the Xinhua

News Agency, data from Chinese

e-commerce giant Alibaba’s online

market Tmall in 2018 showed a trend

toward younger consumers. Con-

sumers 18-35 made up more than 50

percent of mooncake buyers. This

has led some to wonder if traditional,

old-school mooncakes will be able to

survive this trend.

One of the early casualties seems to

be wuren mooncakes. Meaning “five

nut,” wuren mooncake filling contains

almonds, walnuts, pinenuts, sesame

seeds and pumpkin seeds.

While wuren mooncakes remain

hugely popular among older genera-

tions, they seem to be falling out of fa-

vor among younger Chinese. In recent

years, many memes and catchphrases

about the nutty snack have begun

to spread online, such as “wuren

mooncakes, please get

out of the classification of mooncakes”

and “if you hate someone, send them

wuren mooncakes,” the latter a twist

on the Haagen-Dazs slogan “if you

love her, take her to Haagen-Dazs.”

Some people say they hate wuren

mooncakes because they are not

sophisticated or novel enough and yet

are also one of the more expensive

types.

Of course, there is no such thing

as bad press. Perhaps due to wuren

mooncakes’ high profile on social

media, sales last year saw impressive

growth. According to data from Tmall,

between September 1 and 17 of 2018,

there were approximately 94 million

keyword searches for wuren moon-

cakes and around 865,760 orders

were placed, allowing them to enter

the top three best-selling types of

mooncakes on the platform.

“I tried wuren mooncakes for the

first time. It was not as bad as I had

heard. It was just a bit too oily,” wrote

one netizen on China’s Twitter-like

Sina Weibo.

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Page Editor:
chenxi@
globaltimes.com.cn
An wuren (five nut) mooncake
Photo: IC