Chinese Moon Festival

On September 14, as on every Sunday, I went over to my grandmother's house after church for lunch. When I entered her house, I found that a table was set-up in her living room, supporting a whole cooked chicken, other food items, some incense, and of course, moon cakes. This unusual display was because that Sunday was the Chinese Moon Festival. This festival, also called the Mid-Autumn Festival is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eigth moon (according to a lunar calendar), around the time of the autumn equinox. It is celebrated every year to greet winter, worship the moon, to celebrate life, and to recognize family and friends living away from one's home.

The food offerings on my grandmother's table were because, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also considered a harvest festival, because during this time harvests were plentiful and food was abundant. The most important offering, however, was the moon cake. According to legend, these cakes came about when the leaders of a rebellion hid secret messages containing the plans of their attack inside of specially made cakes. These cakes came to be called moon cakes, because the rebels planned the attack to take place during the Moon Festival. Moon cakes are typically made with a red bean paste and contain a whole egg yolk in the middle, to represent the full moon. I tried my first moon cake this year, and let's just say it did not agree with my taste buds.

Next year, I will walk into my grandmother's house more aware of the Moon Festival holiday and it's significance. However, I might be more careful to avoid the moon cakes!

Pearson, Chris. "Mooncake." To the Moon. 25 Sept. 2007. 16 Dec. 2008 http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://markcole.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/mooncake1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://markcole.wordpress.com/2007/09/25/mooncake/&usg=__bqbrpfvq2vdmne62vek7b4gxzks=&h=314&w=347&sz=80&hl=en&start=1&tbnid=i36133bhcp1d3m:&t.

Room Renovations

I’m currently in the process of re-doing my room, and right now I’m stuck on deciding which color to paint my walls. The trim is going to stay white, but I just need one color to paint all four walls with. My furniture is made of pinewood, and is similar to the shade of the panels in the link. The blanket on my bed is purple, blue, pink, and green in a block-like pattern that is almost mosaic. So far, my decision is leaning towards painting my room a toned-down version of lime green, such as the one in my blanket. I think that the light green will visually make the room look larger, while the brightness of the color will also be fun and happy, just how I want my room to look. What do you think?

If you’re thinking about re-painting a room in your house, this website offers a lot of assistance in helping a person pick out a color or color scheme to use. It has a lot of information about the effects of colors in a room, as well as many tips to choosing a color scheme to accomodate a person's certain room situation.

After a color or color scheme is decided, this other site can be used to help a person visualize what the color or color schemes they are deciding between would actually look like in a room. This helps, because colors usually end up looking different when they're covering an entire wall, as opposed to a small color sample. It's easy! Simply choose a room, and select a color from a very wide variety according to your preferences.

Picking out a color for a room may not seem very hard, but a lot more thought goes into it than most people realize! The color of a room not only has a very big impact on the overall effect of the room, but is permanent and not very easy to change. So, be careful while deciding on a color, just as I'm going to spend a lot more thought as to which color I'm going to paint my room.