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CHINA * MAIL
Established 1943
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1957.
$5 MILLION MOONCAKE SPREE
This Week Hongkong Prepares For The Mid-Autumn Festival
by Francis Boey
China Mail Feature Writer
D
URING this week and on to Septem- ber 8, Chinese families both rich and poor will spend an estimated $5 million on mookcakes to celebrate the Chinese Eighth Moon Mid-Autumn Festival.
To the Chinese, especially the womenfolk, this traditional festival which falls yearly on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon far surpasses in importance those of New Year, the Dragon Boat Festival and the Emperor's birthday,
What Goes
Into A Mooncake
It was also one of the low holidays f Imperial days when offees were closed to conble ritizens to celebrate the festival in grandiose style, pageantry and galety.
Since last month, confection- ers, bakery shops and Len houses have been turning out mooncakes around the clock to cope with the demand around this mid-autumn period.
It is therefore
not surprising that the business done during
By S. S. War the festival equals in many casos
A Western couple ware
curiously-scanning-the- show-window of a Chinose stora where mooncakes
prominently were
dis-
the bulk of the income these shops
for the receive year.
Biggest Spree
whole
local
The manager of bakery whose 11rm sells more than $300,000 worth of mooncakes every year told me that contrary to what some people are led to believe, the bo Mid-Autumn Festival spending spree by the Chinese people fur exceeds thut at Chinese New
played. They, hesitated, wondering whether to buy some. They were apparently new ar- rivals and were curious know how these strange cakes taste.
mooncakes
"In Hongkong total soles of million mark," he said.
are cround the $5
And stranger still is the fact
Well, for the beneilt of people like this, let me give their some About this time-honoured idea Chinese deliency in the hope that they will get a timely taste that it is poor working-class of it this year before it abruptly people who buy the bulk of the disappears from the market mooncakes. It has been the lapse of the Chinese tradition among working-class After Mid-Autumn Festival
(as the cake is usually stowed away frus
people to present muoncakes, even unsold after the fele show that good business been done).
Two Kinds
10
and wines to their
has superiors in order to be held in
esteem.
To enable them to buy mCON- cakes without having to pay la one lump sum, mooncake shops There are two main kinds of Issue CDSY payment coupons mooncakes in China, namely throughout the year. These "Stanghal mooncake" and coupons vary in price ranging "Cantonese mooncake", which from $1.50 to $3. Coupons cre
all appear on the market about sold monthly for a period of 12 the Mid months at the end of which onc month before Aulumin Festival 'comes round each one entities a customer to on the 15th day of the 8th moon four to eight boxes of mooncakes on the Chinese calendar.
depending on the quality he
is
As Hongkong's population chooses. Mooncakes with the
predominantly
Cantonese, egg yolk are the more expensive
Cantonese cokes are chiefly disones.
played here while the Shanghai There are several versions on variety are on sale on a very the origin of the mooncake Bmited scale.
festival handed down from
The Cantonese mooncake had rather
f round shape, usually one-inch centuries.
to son through the
accepted has its origin in the reign of the Ming dynasty.
thick alli a weight of 4 oze One which is popularly each and its gleaming brown tou is embossed with figures and Chutse characters. The Shang- hai cake is round, much thinner and smaller and has a lustraless and plain top.
I was believed that when the first Ming ruler was trying to force out the Yuan dynasty of the Mongols, a certain Liu Pal- entered Peking
city
The Cantonese cake has a wen very thin crust made of four incognito. He called his people inside of which is entirely the together and a plan was agreed Ingredient specißed thereon. upon that on the fifteenth day of There are many kinds of Can- the eighth moon they should tonese cakes containing differ-tight their lanterns that night to ent Ingredients. Among them signify the start of the rebellion..
may be mentioned "mashed lity
seed paste," "mashed bean
paste," "mashed coconut," and
mashed date paste" mooncakes,
etc.
The Roundest
It was also
stated that cakes
Salt egg yolks are usually would be distributed with a embedded in the "mashed y message in it to tell the people sced paste," und "mashed coco-
when to light the lanterns for the wu!" mconcakes.
and as a result the Mongols left revalt. This worked successfully
the city en masse at this ruse. And this
was also how mooncake got its name.
tho
According to the Chineão Almanac the fifteenth day of
The cakes are known by the ingredients they contain. large quantity of edible oil or lard and sugar are used to make the contents glitter and for Uint reason the palatable Cantonese
mooncake is very hard to digest. Savoury
the eight moon was the only night of the year when the moon is roundest. The Chkicse coconut and also believed that it was one "mashed y seed paste" cakes night of the year when one can- are considered to be the best of not see one's shadow beenuse
*Mashed
་
all, especially when they con- the moon is directly overhead. talo salt egg yolks,
Thomashed bean pasto" cake, Is.no Teas palatabia for its
⚫ own peculiar taste.
(Contd. on Figo 8. Col. '4)
Thus every year, Chloese old and young and, wherever they uro celebrate the fifteenth day of the eighth moon as did their fathers before them.
Printed, god published by PETER PLUMBLY for and on behalf of South China Morning Post Limited at 1-3 Wyndham Btreet, City of Victoria in the Colony of Hongkong.
These four pletures, taken by our staff photo- grapher at a prominent mooncake manufacturer's premises last week show the various stages of pre- paration. The topmost picture shows the cooks pre- paring the pastry, below, other cooks preparing the filling. Below that, cooks. stack trays of uncooked mooncakes before putting them in the oven, and the bottom picture shows the finished product being dis- played in a box of four,
COUNTER
CHECK FOR HOUSING SURVEY
The Housing Survey is now making a counter check
of the results obtained in a
|
SHEAFFERS
Skrip
FRANKFURT FAIR OPENS
HK DOUBLES THE SIZE OF ITS DISPLAY
Frankfurt, Sept. 1.
From the Filer
25
years -AGO
THE Peking correspondent of the Daily Express reports that Henry Pu-yi, the boy ex- emperor of China and now President of the Manchukuo
Exhibits from Hongkong at this year's Inter-Government, has confered the
national Frankfurt Fair cover double the space at last year's Fair, a spokesman for the Hongkong General Chamber of Commerce said.
Honour of Death" upon his former mistress, Wan-sul.
Until last year she lived luxuriously in the President's Tientsin establishment, but they
were legally separated after
1
the
About 70 Hongkong firms show, either at own stands or represented by agents, their goods in an squabble with his lawful wife, impressive collective show at the International Frankfurt Fair which opened today.
The total number of exhibi-
tora is almost 3,100, including about 000 from 35 nationa abroad. The Hongloong show belongs to the 18- nationa? pavilions or collective
shows
grouped 1 both sides of the "Avenue of Nations" which crossed the Frankfurt Fair grounds.
of
The exhibition 19 divided into two sections. One of them houses a general display goods which Hongkong is able to supply and the other is re- served to the displays of in- dividual exhibitors,
Confident
A spokesman for the Hong-
16-storey
Building
For Kowloon
BY A CHINA MAIL
REPORTE
It is understood that President promised to pay an
allowance of $400 a month, but it la alleged that this has never been paid.
[Ed's note: Henry Pu-yi 19 still alive today--in a reform camp in North China He was seen British recently by a visiting journalist
Hongkong Share market: Hongkong Banks $1580, HK & Kowloon Wharf $141, HK Lands $75, Hongkong Realtics $8.90, HK and Whampoa Docks 324 buyers, Hongkong Hotels (old) $104 buyers, Humphreys $10 buyers, HK Trama $22, Lane, Crawford, $5.
"DURING
46 UNING my long residence
in China," remarked respected resident isat week, "I bave THEVET seen ships leave
kong exhibitors said he and his Yet another skyscraper is Shanghal with such light co
colleagues were confident that they would do good business at the fair, not only judging from the highly satisfactory resulta achieved inst year,
when they took part in a Frankfurt Fair
springing up in Kowloon good. The bows are well out and will be ready for ac- of water when leaving, port, cupation by the end of and the blades of the propellers pre to be seen. It is a suro next year.
sign of that depression which The Mirador Mansion the community-is-just beginning cause they have already re- celved numerous inquiries on which occupios 40,000 have suffered very much yet the opening day this ycor.
for the first time, but also be
to feel. I do not think Wo
square feet in Tsimshatsui but all this is to be observed Primary purpose of the ex-district, hibition was to Increase sales to
is 10-storeys high from the vessels in port, and West Germany, but the opport- und will have all together from the little cargo now im
ported and exported. unity to establish new contacts about 800 business and re- with foreign visitors to the fair sidential units. would also be used.. This morn-
ing for instance, a Briush
The bullding has a 200-foot businessman came to the Hong frontage along Nathon
A
Sir-In your Bird's Eye View Road column, Argus (the columnist's kong show to make business in- and occupies the former site of pecudonym) suggests that quiries. The spokesman sald Nos 54-04, Nathan that visitors from Scandinavia, other buildings
and other Avenue at the rear.
the
United States
countries were also expected to collect business information or conclude contracts in the Hong- kong show.
The spokesman said the no-
in
Road, and writer who wants to know what of ali the old Bristol, becomes
gramophone recorda should earch the ZBW library. This Is typleat of the sneers which, under the cloak of humour are continually being made at the local broadcasting authorities.
Two Escalators
This
recent Colony-wide survey duction of German Import duties will have a business arcade on The latter welcome constructiv
of housing conditions.
The inlunl survey has been completed. Now those chosen for the survey have received a letter from the Survey Offer, Hongkong University saying: "We are trying now to calculate; on a comparative basis tho
· accuracy of the restilia sup-
*For
which recently became effective was expected to help consider ably to promote sales from Hongkong to West Germany.
Competitive
multi-storey building the ground floor and shops en the first and second floors.
jibes are quite pointless, and suggestions, but many of the
their cumulative effect must bo These three storeys will be to produce a very unfavourable the served by two ascending escala-impression of ZBW In tors,
minds of non-Ilstences,
Argus' remark is no doubt The three floors contain 250 intended to be witty, but many This year, exhibitors from shops and business offices while readers may think it is based piled by our interviewers. Hongkong chiefly concentrated the other floors will have 550 on truth. This is definitely not
this purpose, a team of on displaying texilles which they residential fints.
ΕΦ. The library collection supervisors will be anot along felt were highly competitive on
entirely of The new skyscraper is bound consists to call on you again and they] German market, the spokesman
arc all practically before.
item was rubber footwear which *This will
a counter manufacturers from Hongkong ed by Mody Road and Carnarvon
the East. The sides are bound- BOWES-SMITH. check an the investigation could offer considerably chesper carried out previously."
than their German competitors. Road.
The show is supplemented by replies to all kinds of inquiries Construction Company, tre concerning Hongkong goods eroscle and on a
stalment basis, given.-China Mall Special.
records
wiit ask the same questions as said. Another important export toad and Bristol Avenue on.
cd on the west by Nathan which will not "date" and they
serve 45
The
flats
Еть the building
new, A.M.
Birds Eye the next day: Mu
The letter ends by apologising a large information stand where which belongs to the Tai Cheung attempt to be funny at ZBW's
for the inconvenience caused.
It was algned by the Acting Head of Department of Econo- mics and Political Science at the University, Mr E. F. Szczepanut.
Man Gets 23 Months
Gaol
Described by the Police as a professional burglar, Ma Yau-thing, 27, was son- tenced to 23 months by 'Mr T. L. Yang at Kowloon this morning оп fivo charges of housebreaking, theft and failing to report to the Police while under supervision.
it
Inspector K. Bodle said the min had a very bath Polleo re- cord. His prison sentence dated back, some 10 years-ogo and since then he had had four more terms.
Inspector Bodio said tho defendant. W04 arrested on hillalde in Kowloon on July 15. He admitted having brok Into 194
third Nathan Road,
Goor, on
Apru and stolen money and property valued $000 Ho further Admitted having committed two thetis in May.
In mitigation, the defendant raked for leniency, saying that ho had since become a cripple,
Mr Yang: The defendant de GoTyds every bit of injury he has received.
SIDE GLANCES
JRACH ¡PECIAL
for expense is resented. Well wa 24-month in shall have to choke with less radio frequency.
By Galbraith
*7-25.
IM. ME VIPA ON
• 10,1997 by BCA Barvien, kan
"The trouble with Eddie'ls that he's always working for Dome silly thing-now it's to pay his way through dental, collegel"
INFORMATION has been re- ceived from ♫ rollablo source that His Majesty, King Neptune, Father of the Scar, Lord of all the Occars ac companied by His Royol Spouse, Amphitrite and Dolphinus, his Chief of Staff, will land at Repulse Bay on the afternoon of Tuesday September 6. A full retinue of Heralds, Guards, Bears, Barbers, Doctors, etc.
will be in attendance. Local residents should roll up la large numbers and see all the pomp and circumstance--and help the MCL effort,
In the handicap doubles of the KCC tennie; Gray and Burnett beat Dunne and Green, 6-3, 6-4. - Hung and Zimmer beat Dinnen and Buchanan, 6-0, 8-3.
Revenue officers, on duty at the Kowloon Canton Ralliody Station at Tsimshatsui ота the Tuceday morning when Exprear came in found 83 tela of raw oplum coriceated in the clothes of one passenger, Chu Lam, who was later fined $2,000, or nine; months' hard labour.
MR
R W. M. Thomson of this Secretariat for Chinesa Affairu, prosecuted a young man bamed Lal Po-hing before Me Fraserat the Kowloon Mugintency:bsterday
on
charge of harbouring and sc}}= ing a girl'agod 10 üfter taking her to "Cantör...