Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival!
You see lanterns on the street, people lighting candles, everywhere is selling moon cake. But what’s it all about?
There are many stories about this full moon festival, and here is my favorite, the love story about Chang’e and HouYi.
The Mid-Autumn Festival Love Story of Chang’E and HouYi
Long, long ago, there were 10 suns in the sky. Now there is only one sun and you can feel how hot it is during the summer in HK. Can you imagine how hot it was when there were 10 suns! The suns burnt all the plants on Earth and people were dying. Hou Yi was an excellent archer, he used his bow and arrows to shoot down nine of them and saved the world!
To thank Hou Yi, the Queen Mother of the West gave Hou Yi a bottle of elixir that could make him immortal. But the elixir was only for one person. Although Hou Yi did want to become immortal, he wanted to stay with his beloved wife, Chang’e instead. He didn’t drink the elixir and asked Chang’e to keep it safe. How sweet he is!
One day when Hou Yi was not at home, Pang Meng, one of Hou Yi’s students who knows about the Elixir, tried to force Chang’e to give him the elixir. Chang’e knew she couldn’t defeat Pang Meng, so she drank the elixir!
The elixir made her fly higher and higher. In the end, she stopped on the moon and became immortal.
When Hou Yi was back home and and found out what was going on, he was so sad, he moved a table under the moon, preparing some food on it. He hoped Chang’e could come back to stay with him.
Since then, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, people have offered lots of food to worship the moon.
So during the Mid-Autumn Festival, have a picnic at night in the park, try to look at the full moon, maybe you will find the beautiful Chang’e there!
Want more stories? Join us the HK Free Walk. The stories teller will tell you more interesting stories about the mid-Autumn festival!
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