The mid-Autumn moon is fullest on the 16th

I think I see a rabbit

The Mid-Autumn Festival occurs on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, which falls on Sunday, 14 September this year. For the first time, the government has made the festival a national holiday, giving people whose employers play by the rules a three-day weekend starting on Saturday.

The festival is traditionally spent together with family, eating moon cakes and admiring the autumn moon, so the time off is supposed to give working people the chance to get back home. To encourage employers to follow through, this year’s rules state that people will earn triple their normal pay rate if they have to work on the 15th.

There’s an old adage that says the moon is roundest not on the Mid-Autumn Festival itself, but on the day after, the 16th of the month. Zeng Ying, a Sichuan-based journalist, alludes to this in the story translated below, which he says is his most widely-reposted article.

When I left for work, I noticed Bingwa, Lao Huang the guard’s son, arguing with Pangpang, one of the kids who live in the complex. The two children, one chubby and the other skinny, were having a serious discussion and were red-faced, stainding with their hands on their hips. It brought to mind the scene in that old story, “The two children arguing about the sun.”*

Unfortunately, I don’t possess the patience of Confucius, but I still have an everyday curiosity, so I went over to take a listen, in the hopes of learning what the kids were arguing about. If I was lucky, I thought, it’d be like a couple weeks ago when I heard them discussing the question of whether frogs had teeth, and maybe I could make a bit of lunch money by turning it into a quick article.

Worn out by the argument, the two kids seemed even more eager than I was to have me interrupt them. Evidently they had grown tired of the discussion and needed a mediator to judge who was right and who was wrong. I had come at just the right time.

Bingwa, the thin, excitable one, tugged on my sleeve and said urgently, “Uncle Zeng, isn’t the Mid-Autumn Festival on the 16th?”

Just as I was about to answer in the negative, I saw the perspiration on his anxious face and felt a little uncomfortable. So I stood silent for a moment, waiting to hear what Pangpang had to say. My many years as a reporter had given me a crafty habit: until two feuding parties finish talking, I’m not quick to express my own opinion.

Pangpang’s face was also beaded with sweat, and he was no less impatient than Bingwa. He said, “Uncle, Mid-Autumn Festival is clearly the 15th, but Bingwa insists that it’s the 16th. I corrected him, but he won’t listen. You be the judge: which one of us is wrong?”

The chubby little guy was obviously convinced he was in the right, and he had the attitude of someone who had been unjustly disregarded.

Bingwa said, “The Mid-Autumn Festival really is the 16th. My father always buys me mooncakes on that day, and every year we sit and watch the moon that night. The 16th is the Mid-Autumn Festival!”

Pangpang didn’t back down, but stepped right up in Bingwa’s face with his hands on his hips, and said in a sharp voice, “It’s obviously the 15th. My mom and dad take me to a resort in the suburbs every year on that day. We eat moon cakes and admire the moon. I remember quite clearly!”

The earnestness of the two kids left me feeling that this was a big deal. For two children not yet in school, the weight of this matter was evidently more than I as an adult could imagine.

I vaguely recalled the previous year’s Mid-Autumn Festival: on the afternoon of the 15th, I ran into Pangpang and his family as they were driving out of the neighborhood. Through the open car window Pangpang waved to me and said, “We’re going to a lotus lake to watch the moon!” Inside the car, sunlight glared off a several-hundred-yuan box of mooncakes.

I also remembered that last year on the 16th, the day after the Mid-Autumn Festival, I saw Lao Huang the guard coming home from shopping, a box of mooncakes carefully hidden among his groceries. And truth be told, lots of laid-off workers like him buy mooncakes on the 16th, because on that day, they’re like a princess who’s turned into an old maid, and their price suddenly drops by 90%. I distinctly recalled Lao Huang and Bingwa sitting in the yard that night in front of a square stool which held their mooncakes, and Bingwa singing in a clear voice, “The moon is fullest on the 16th! Dad’s bought me mooncakes…”

So now I understood what the kids were fighting over, but this realization didn’t make things any easier. I wanted to tell Bingwa candidly that the Mid-Autumn Festival is on the 15th, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I also thought about lying to Pangpang and saying that the Festival was on the 16th, but my instincts told me that it’s immoral to lie to kids, and besides, the lie would only last until the next time he ran into an adult.

Stuck in this dilemma, I suddenly thought of a way out. Into Pangpang’s ear, I whispered, “You’re right. Mid-Autumn Festival is on the 15th….”

And then into Bingwa’s ear, I said, “You’re not wrong. Your family’s Mid-Autumn Festival is on the 16th…”

As I spoke those words, I felt my face grow hot, and I practically fled out of the neighborhood gate. I didn’t know whether my words, which weren’t even enough to convince me, would be able to stop the two kids from arguing, and I really hoped that there’d be a rainbow, or that the sky would open for an alien to drop down, something to distract the kids for a moment and keep them from ever returnng to this subject.

For the next few days, I was a little afraid of running into those two kids again whenever I went in or out of the complex, so I started sneaking around…..

Note: 两小儿辨日: The two children in the story argue over whether the sun is farther away in the morning or at noon. One says it looks larger in the morning than at noon, so it’s closer in the morning. The other says that the morning is cooler than noontime, so the sun is farther away in the morning. Confucius can’t answer them, so the two kids mock him.