On Thursday, Ms. B, one of the Chinese staff in our office got a phone call asking her to go to the main gate of the school to receive a delivery of gifts for Mid-Autumn Festival. The caller was a representative from the printing company we worked with this past summer.
“Bring a large cart with you to the gate,” he instructed. “I have 16 boxes.”
She obeyed, thinking that she would be picking up 16 boxes of moon cakes.
She was wrong. There were 4 sets of 4 boxes. In other words, there were 4 people in the office (fortunately I was not one of them ) who were each to get 4 boxes of goodies.
And here’s the interesting part….not one of the boxes had any moon cakes. The printer had decided to buck tradition and send gift boxes of other stuff instead.
Box Number One: Preserved Duck Eggs
Box Number 2: Preserved dates
Box Number Three: Jars of Sesame Oil
Box Number 4: Donkey Meat (yes, the printer is from Hebei)
Suddenly, moon cakes are sounding pretty good.
My Chinese friends here in Houston asked which kind of moon cakes I prefer.
The only kinds that I’ve had that I like are red bean and date. What kinds do you like?
I don’t like any of them!
At least oil can always be used! 🙂 And those dates are quite good…if “preserved” means “dehydrated”. 🙂
Yep, Moon Cakes DO sound good! I can actually say that I could eat one right now. *sigh*
It’s like the 12 days of Christmas! How have we done without Donkey meat!