Happy mooncake season!

I may be coming late to the party on this one, but has the Mid-Autumn Festival always been this widely celebrated in Singapore? I've never had so many mooncakes before. Usually, Terz's mom gets us some from Malaysia, which she did again this year. But that aside, I've been regularly offered mooncakes by friends and colleagues, seen mooncakes on sale everywhere, and even taken another step in the process of growing up by buying mooncakes for my mother, rather than waiting for her to take care of it. Oh, and we have a mooncake party to go to tomorrow night (though I suspect that one will lean more towards the "party" than the "mooncake" side of things.)

It's like Chinese New Year all over again, with a little bit of Xmas spirit thrown in, in that people are giving mooncakes to each other with the same strange mixture of social obligation and genuine generosity with which they tend to exchange Xmas gifts. I've found myself mentally scrolling through all the people I know but don't see as often, wondering if this might not be a timely opportunity to send them a box of mooncakes by way of thank-you or hello.

Of course, right after that, I ponder whether my sickly bank account will survive if I sneak out a little money for another box of those divinely addictive champagne truffle mooncakes from Raffles Hotel.

The big nostalgia moment for me was having a few of the neighbourhood kids run past last night, their lanterns bobbing with every step they took. Call me old school, but it's nice to see that they had some old-fashioned paper or cellophane lanterns with them, not just the stiff plastic ones. I don't think you can get lanterns with candles anymore, though; most varieties seem to contain a battery-operated bulb these days.

I hear that Sunday is the actual Mid -Autumn Festival day. Don't forget to kiss your lover, hang out with your family and ogle the moon.

Oh, and eat some mooncakes.

This blog post was brought to you by the sliver of green tea snowskin twist mooncake with single yolk that I just ate (from the exquisite and impeccable Hua Ting Restaurant at Orchard Hotel, if anyone's taking notes).

Edited to add (Sep 17): Other bloggers reflect on what the Mooncake Festival means to them:

• 儒: Nostalgia (or my primary school descriptive essay)
  
• she bakes and she cooks: 'Li Bai' mooncakes'
  

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