!Monday, October 16, 2006
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How mooncake festival came about.
I figured all you people might need a little cheena education.
Once upon a time in China in some random province before your great great great great great great great great-grandmother even had her feet bound, even before feet-binding started in the first place there was this fairly pretty lady called Chang Er (directly translated=long ear).
So Chang Er had porcelain complexion, with wispy hair and silky stuff fluttering about.
And as it always goes, pretty weak ladies end up marrying heroes. So she married Hou Yi, the guy who shot nine out of ten suns (which makes me wonder why he didn't just finish them all off).
Because of Hou Yi's chivalry, Queen Mother of the Western Skies (funny huh, China's in the east) gave him a immortality elixir.
But selfish Chang Er slapped her silky hair around and sulked. She must have that elixir! So what if Hou Yi could shoot down suns, she was so pretty could make all of them turn away in bashfulness!
So she ate/drank the elixir. But unfortunately she ate/drank too much of it just in case. It unknowingly contained helium, which caused the already-fairy-like Chang Er to float, and then she started to hiccup, and then develop a helium-induced donald duck quack, and floated out of her house, much to her husband's surprise (yes, he tried to grab her silky fairy stuff when he found out what was happening, but it was too late).
So she floated and floated, and managed to grab a fluffy rabbit from a nearby farm.
So now she's isolated permanently on the moon, with only a rabbit for company. Having nobody to talk to, she communicates frequently with her rabbit, who does not seem to mind her donald duck voice. Occasionally, however, she does have the ability to send high-pitch frequency messages which induce all mooncake-makers to automatically have her blown-up picture placed on the lid of every mooncake box.
Chang Er believes that through this propaganda, one day she might just be able to take over the earth, where she shall rule from afar and have a palace on the moon. After all, she's already suceeded in becoming the moon goddess.
Hou Yi, however, got so angry that his elixir had been eaten up by Chang Er that he gave up on shooting permanently. However in a lucky turn of events, he got endorsed by a cosmetic surgery brand that constantly renewed his good looks.
So over the years, he has morphed into...
Christopher Lee.
P.S. there's another version of this story where Hou Yi is the baddie and Chang Er takes the elixir to prevent him from becoming immortal. I prefer the former one.