Mid-Autumn Festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival  ( zhōng qiū jié in Mandarin ) is also known as the Moon Festival. It is a popular East Asian celebration of abundance and togetherness, dating back over 3,000 years to China's Zhou Dynasty. In Malaysia and Singapore, we also refer to it as the Lantern Festival or "Mooncake Festival."


The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month of the Chinese calendar (usually late-September or early October), a date that parallels the Autumn Equinox of the solar calendar. This year it falls on 3rd October 2009. This is apparently the ideal time, when the moon is at its fullest and brightest, to celebrate the abundance of the summer's harvest. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are several varieties.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the two most important holidays in the Chinese calendar (the other being the Lunar New Year). Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date. Traditionally, on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-Autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomeloes together. Other interesting customs include: carrying brightly lit lanterns, putting pomelo rinds on one's head, burning incense in reverence to deities, planting Mid-Autumn trees,and collecting dandelion leaves for distribution among family.

Children often hear the tale of the moon fairy living in a crystal palace, who comes out to dance on the moon's shadowed surface. This legend of the "lady living in the moon" goes back to ancient times, to a day when ten suns appeared at once in the sky. The Emperor ordered a famous archer to shoot down the nine extra suns. Once the task was accomplished, the Goddess of Western Heaven rewarded the archer with a pill that would make him immortal. However, his wife found the pill, took it, and was duly banished to the moon. Legend says that her beauty is greatest on the day of the Moon festival.

The other famous legend surrounding the Moon festival is linked into Chinese history. During the Yuan dynasty (AD 1280-1368), China was ruled by the Mongols.  The leaders from the preceding Sung dynasty (AD 960-1280) were unhappy at being subject to foreign rule, and began to furtively organise a rebellion. The rebel leaders, knowing that the Moon festival was drawing near, ordered the making of special cakes. Baked into each moon cake was a message outlining attack plans. The mooncakes - which the Mongols did not eat - were the perfect vehicle for hiding and passing along these plans. Families were instructed not to eat the mooncakes until the day of the festival, which was when the rebellion took place, and the government was overthrown. This led to the establishment of the Ming dynasty (AD 1368-1644).

Great stories, huh? Would make great swordfighting movies ala Shaw Brothers or John "Red Cliff" Woo. Anyway, always good to know the legends, customs and traditions behind any festival. Now who says this blog is not educational? LOL.

For those who celebrate it, do share how you spent your Mid-Autumn Festival ...

Wine for Asia 2008

Yesterday I was invited by my friend Tommy, a sommelier and owner of popular restaurant Cafe de Amigo in Singapore, to visit the "Wine for Asia 2008" exhibition and show at Suntec City in Singapore. There were over 150 companies represented there, coming from Europe, South America, Asia and the US. The exhibition was nicely laid out in neat booths along five or six lanes in a huge hall on Level 6. Many company representatives manned the booths, with bottles of wines of all varieties (varietals?) available for the sampling. It was naturally a very enjoyable experience, and I tried no fewer than a dozen glasses (only a small quantity in each, of course :-)

As with most shows and exhibitions, I ended up with a small stack of marketing collateral - brochures, pamphlets, flyers, namecards and so on. As I look through them, I found that the blends I tasted had come from countries & areas such as: Austria (Wien), France (Bordeoux), Italy (Palermo, Cecina, Sicily), Spain (Sabadell) and Argentina (Mendoza). I normally like red wines - like Cabernet Sauvignons and Merlots - but at this exhibition, I tasted some really smooth whites as well.

I had a look at some global wine consumption statistics from the Wine Institute. I'll share two sets of figures - per capita consumption and then total volume consumed.

First the per capita consumption figures available go up to 2005 (a little dated, but these kinds of figures don't fluctuate much from year to year, so I reckon they're still pretty accurate). The country with highest per capita wine consumption (in litres) is the Vatican City at 62 litres/person - I'm imagining a lot of tipsy cardinals and priests staggering around St Peter's Square ;-) Andora comes in second at 60 litres/person. France is third at 56. Looking further down the list, some interesting ones are Italy at 49, Spain at 35, Argentina at 29 and the UK at 19. The USA is surprisingly low at 9 litres/person. From Asia, the top country is actually Singapore at 2 litres/person, followed closely by Japan and Hong Kong, both just below 2. China is at 0.9, Taiwan 0.8 and Malaysia at 0.3.

And second, the total volume of wine consumed figures, which reflect a somewhat different picture. The top ten countries are: France (34 million hectolitres), Italy (28 m), USA (26 m), Germany (20 m), Spain (14 m), China (12 m), Argentina (11.5 m), UK (11.5 m), Russia (8.5 m) and Romania (6 m). Singapore does a mere 95,000 hectolitres.

Now that I've dazzled you with figures, don't expect any more deep insights or commentary today. I'm still recovering from yesterday's glorious consumption. But reading through the exhibition directory, I regret a little that there are so many booths and blends I missed - perhaps I should go back again for more exploration on the last day of "Wine for Asia 2008" today :-)

Cheers everybody !

Thailand - Land of Smiles, Shrines & Stalemate

I found myself in Bangkok for two days this week for some planning meetings. I've always enjoyed coming to Thailand, and I've found most Thais I've met friendly and hospitable. The tagline "Thailand - Land of Smiles" holds true ... for me anyway.

Stayed at the Grand Hyatt Erawan, as I normally try to do. I like the Grand Hyatt, which is on Ratchadamri Road in central Bangkok. Very comfortable and conveniently located, near the shopping areas (not that I had much spare time to visit them) as well as our Thailand office.

There's a prominent Hindu shrine at the road crossing, next to the hotel. The Erawan Shrine, dedicated to the Hindu god Brahma and Erawan, his (three-headed) elephant, is extremely popular, drawing a constant stream of devout worshippers every day. They come to burn incense, offer up coloured garlands and pray. Sometimes there are traditional dance performances to honour the deity.

There are a couple of interesting stories about the Erawan area. The Erawan Shrine was actually built, at the advice of an astrologer, after several workers lost their lives in mysterious accidents during the construction of the Erawan Hotel in the mid 50's. It seemed the hotel project had plenty of problems.Besides the worker casualties, it was also beset by cost over-runs as well as loss of building materials. Once the shrine was constructed, no further accidents occurred.

A more recent incident happened in 2006 when a Thai man, later said to be mentally unstable, used a hammer to smash the hollow statue of Brahma into bits. The crowd of worshippers, once having gotten over the initial shock, descended on him and basically battered him to death. I'm not sure how many people (if any) were eventually charged. A new Brahma statue was completed and installed two months later.

Thailand is still going through much political uncertainty. It has been almost two years since the bloodless military coup which led to the ousting of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in September 2006. Soon afterwards, his Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party was dissolved, and 111 executive members from the party were banned from holding political office for five years. At the national elections in December 2007, the newly formed People's Power Party (PPP) won with a comfortable majority, and its leader Samak Sundaravej became Prime Minister. Critics cried foul saying that the PPP was just TRT under a new name and that PPP supporters were merely Thaksin supporters. Nonetheless the PPP together with a few minor parties formed the ruling coalition. Things have not been easy. The PPP continued to be pressured by the opposition Democrat Party. Some PPP politicians were charged for corruption. The abilities of the leadership have been called into question, with derogatory references to a "second tier" Cabinet. There's even a border dispute with neighbouring Cambodia over an ancient temple.

All throughout this period, Thaksin and his family have been constantly in the limelight. After more than a year of self-imposed exile in London, where he seemed to have a good time - he even bought football club Manchester City (which obviously got him a lot of media coverage by the football-crazy Thais) - he and his wife voluntarily returned to Bangkok. Charges of corruption and abuse of power were brought against him and his wife, Pojaman. Soon after the latter was sentenced to a jail term (although it is under appeal), Thaksin and wife apparently decided to slip away (after attending the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing) back to London. The headlines in yesterday's "The Nation" newspaper said it all: "Thaksin Must Face Justice: Democrat". Moves have been initiated to seize his considerable assets and to try to get him extradited back to Thailand.

Yes indeed, Thailand is facing much political uncertainty. There's no clear light at the end of this murky political tunnel. So many things seem to be going wrong. And this political stalemate seems to have all stumped for breakthrough solutions. Perhaps a new shrine is called for. It worked for the Erawan Hotel. Perhaps it will work again for the Kingdom of Thailand.

Remembering Borobodur

Pop Quiz: What is the connection between Borobodur and Singapore? (Read on for answer)

I have a little souvenir "stupa" on my desk at home. It's a pretty heavy bell-shaped object made from some form of rock, so it does well as a paper weight. I got it during my visit to the ancient Borobodur temple on the island of Java, in Indonesia about two years ago. A "stupa" is a symbol of enlightenment and an ancient icon of Buddhist art. Stupas are also very prevalent forms of Buddhist architecture, and are designed with deep symbolism and geometry. They are often filled with Buddhist relics and other sacred objects.

Borobodur is located 40km north-west of Yogyakarta and is a popular tourist destination. The Borobodur Temple complex, recognised as one of the largest Buddhist monuments in the world, is believed to have been built between the end of the 7th and beginning of the 8th century A.D. For about a century and half, it was the spiritual centre of Buddhism in Java, and then suddenly it was lost, overgrown by the jungle until its rediscovery in the 19th century.

The structure comprises about 60,000 square metres of lava rock, the whole complex sited on a hill. It is shaped like a stepped-pyramid with six rectangular levels, three circular terraces and a huge central stupa at the top. There are many stupas located all around, with a statue of the Buddha within each, except for the main stupa itself which is empty, which as I was told, symbolizes complete perfection of enlightenment. There are thousands of bas relief carvings of scenes derived from Buddhist text depicting the life of the Buddha, including portrayals of hellish torture mixed with sweet pleasures.

Back to my pop quiz question. What links Singapore and Borobodur is Stamford Raffles. Most people know that Raffles is credited with the founding of the city of Singapore. But less known is the fact that during his time as Governor of Java, Raffles was also responsible for the rediscovery of the ancient Borobodur site. While Raffles was on an inspection expedition to the north coast of Java in 1814, he learnt of a large monument deep in a jungle near the village of Bumisegoro. As he was not able to the site himself, he instructed a Dutch engineer named H.C. Cornelius to go and investigate. In two months, Cornelius and his men felled trees, burnt vegetation and excavated the earth to reveal the monument. Due to the danger of collapse, he could not unearth all galleries. He reported his findings to Raffles including various drawings. Thus Raffles has been credited with the monument's recovery, as one who had brought it to the world's attention.

Over the years, the Borobodur complex suffered much damage - both natural and man-made (including looting of various artefacts). From 1968-1973, UNESCO led a "Save Borobodur" restoration campaign. Today Borobudur is once again used as a place of worship and pilgrimage.

Reflection
As I get older, I find myself being increasingly interested in history. Perhaps it's because I see myself gradually becoming a historical relic too ;-) In reading about events in the past, I notice an unsettling pattern of repeated mistakes that mankind seems to have made. We certainly don't seem to learn our lessons well. Empires rise and fall in very similar ways. Wars are fought for equally dubious reasons (eg. the parallels between Vietnam and Iraq wars are uncanny).

I'm especially drawn to "lost world" scenarios. How could once prosperous cities and societies over time have declined so significantly to the point of near disappearing? I'm intrigued by the writing of such scholars like Jared Diamond, whose book "Collapse" covers this topic, on the disappearance of the Mayans, Greenland's Norse, inhabitants of Easter Island, etc. Why and how did it happen? Will there one day be a "Lost City of Singapore"? Or an "Ancient Ruins of Kuala Lumpur"? Or "Buried Bangkok"? A preposterous notion? Maybe. Then again, if we recall that Borobodur thrived for 150 years, maybe not ...