Mid Autumn Festival Legend

Behind the festival, there is a beautiful legend about Chang'e and the moon. There are many versions. One of the version is that Chang'e and her husband Houyi were immortals living in heaven.

One day, the ten sons of the God transformed into ten suns, which caused drought on the earth. Having failed to order his sons to stop ruining the earth, God summoned Houyi to assist in solving the matter.

Houyi, using his legendary archery skills, shot down nine of the sons, leaving only one as the sun. God was sad and angry at the death of his nine sons and therefore punished Houyi and Chang'e by ordering them to live on earth as ordinary human beings.

Knowing that Chang'e was very miserable over her loss of immortality, Houyi decided to start his jouney to look for the pill of immortality.
He finally sought the pill but was warned that one person could only take half of the pill to become immortal. Houyi brought the pill home and stored it in a case. He told Chang'e not to open it and then left home for a while.
Like Pandora in Greek mythology, Chang'e was too curious and she opened the case.

It happened that Houyi just returned home. Being too panic with Houyi?s return, she accidentally swallowed the entire pill and began to float in the air ascending to the sky. Although Houyi could shoot her down, he just could not bear to hurt her with the arrow.

Chang'e therefore continued to float until she landed on the moon. Since then, Chang'e lived on her own on the moon with the company of a jade rabbit. That is why rabbit is always found during this festival such as the rabbit lantern.


The Mid Autumn Festival is the best time to eat Moon Cakes