(Un)Happy Moon Festival

Moon Festival, or mid-Autumn festival, happens on the full moon near the equinox. It has something to do with the Moon Lady who is some kind of ghost, but I think more of a general Chinese ghost than a Taoist ghost, but mostly involves eating moon cakes (flaky pastries that can be filled with fruit, nuts, egg yolk, etc) and doing "BBQ" as it's known in Chinese.

Man, do people love their BBQ. They forbid people from doing it in the public parks, I guess to cut down on pollution, so everyone BBQs in front of their house. There were lots of BBQs last weekend and they smell so good. Today I was stuffed on Thai food and outside someone was doing BBQ in their garage and it still made my mouth water.

You'd think torrential rain and 30 mph winds would cut down on BBQ, and I think it has somewhat but there were still tons of people stocking up on BBQ supplies at the grocery store today. They had buckets of marinating beef and pork and chicken; you just picked up your meat with tongs and put it in a bag.

I do feel sorry for everyone because it seems like a nice tradition- every year with your family have Moon Festival BBQ. But I think the typhoon is vengeance from the Moon Lady because this year Moon Festival fell on Sunday so no days off for anyone. I think if Taiwan would've at least given us Saturday off we wouldn't have this typhoon now. (Oh, wait, I don't think that. Do I?)