This year’s Mid-Autumn Festival is on September 29th. This festival is one of Chinese traditional events.

For Japan’s moon viewing festival also follows on the same day as Chinese one. Traditionally, we offer Otsukimi Dango which is Japanese glutinous rice dumplings to celebrate for the festival. You can click here to watch my IG reel on making Otsukimi Dango.

A picture above：

The Otsukimi Dango Making Set that I used is from a company, Shiratamaya Shinzaburo @shiratamaya_shinzaburou. The company was founded about 380 years ago in Japan. They produce high-grade Japanese glutinous rice flour. ✨🍡Their flour is made from 100% Japan grown glutinous rice, and they produce them by using a traditional stone mill, Ishiusu.🎉

About the Moon Cakes

You might have heard about Moon Cakes. It is one of China’s traditional sweets, which are the must have sweets during the mid-autumn festival.

I have learned that there are different styles of moon cakes produced depending on the regions in China, such as Guangzhou style, Beijing style, Suzhou style and Chaozhou style.

I found some moon cakes at a local super market, and I tried each of them with my family.

Moon cakes!

The 5 kinds of nuts filling.

The dates paste filling.

The orange sweet paste filling.

The Dorian pate filling. The wrapper was sweet soft mochi.

I cut the moon cakes and enjoyed with my family!

Momoyama style moon cake. The outside was very soft and fluffy. 🙂

The filling tasted like tea.

The filling was purple sweet potato.

In Japan, we also have a Mid-Autumn Festival (Moon Viewing Festival) every year. The original idea of this festival was brought to Japan in the Heian era (794) by Japanese Buddhist students who traveled to China to learn their advanced literature and technology. During the Japanese Mid-Autumn Festival, we enjoy viewing the moon and give thanks for a good harvest throughout the year. Traditionally, we offer Otsukimi Dango (お月見団子) which are small sweet dumplings, and placed by the window, where you can see the moon. The small Dango refer to the full moon.

I did a little research on Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. In ancient times, the Chinese emperor worshiped the full moon as a god, and as the time passed by, it became a tradition to wish for a good harvest with playing music. The round shape of moon cake reflects the shape of the full moon, and is a symbol of a happy family. Since Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival is a National holiday, people travel to their hometown and spend time with their family.

My daughter enjoyed Otsukimi Dango with the roasted sweet soy bean powder called “Kinako”

I talked to my children about the differences and similarities of the Mid-Autumn Festival in Japan and China, and we enjoyed the moon cakes and our moon viewing Dango, Otsukimi dango together.

Thank you for reading my blog and wishing you all a great moon festival!!

中秋节快乐！！