Moon Cake Time

So this Saturday is the Autumn Moon Festival.  It's a time when the entire country celebrates the end of the harvest season.  They also celebrate and worship the moon goddess.  Most of my generation, doesn't really even know what the festival is about, but everyone goes home to their families and they celebrate and eat etc.  Kind of like Thanksgiving, but not.  One of the traditions of the Moon Festival is to by these little things called moon cakes for all your friends, family, teachers, etc.  It's like moon pie, no actually it's nothing like a moon pie and frankly it makes me mad that it isn't.  Anyway moving on.....Also this week is the 60 year anniversary of a pretty important event in this country's history.  So imagine that Thanksgiving and Easter are on the same week as the 4th of July and well, you get the picture.  OH and it's not any 4th of July, it's the bicentennial 4th.  

So last night some friends and I went to dinner and then I decided to stop by the store.  An American friend of mine whose family has lived here for six years or so told me to make sure I had plenty of food, money etc. before Thursday because most of the stores would probably close down.  So I couldn't think of a ton of stuff I needed but I did realize that I was going to run out of shampoo over the weekend.  Plus, the weather has given me a cold and honey in tea sounded pretty good.  So that's all I needed shampoo and honey.  As a made my way to the grocery store, I did notice that the street outside with all the moon cake vendors was especially busy, but the whole day had been busy, no big deal. 

Once inside the store it was insane....semi controlled madness.  Take Wal-Mart at home, cut the store into a fourth of the size but pack as many people as before in it and make it the day after Christmas.  Then take everyone's personal space (there is no such thing as personal space in most Asian cultures) and shrink the space by 100%.  Throw in a bunch of screaming kids, yelling adults over the price of moon cake boxes, and 30 minutes waiting in line.  The only thing I can tell you is that it was like the day after Thanksgiving at Wal-Mart on crack.  Sorry if the analogy offends anyone.  

Here is the lesson of the day.  If you are ever in Asia, do not, I repeat do not go to a store or even walk on a street the day before the national celebration or the week of the Autumn Moon Festival.  You don't need that shampoo that bad.......you just don't.  

Beautiful Feet ...p.s. I do laugh at this stuff, really I do.