current position→The Mid Autumn Festiva→Eat mooncakes  Chinese

          Eat mooncakes

By  /  Wu Jinyan        Photo  /  Zhang Longyu

     I live with my grandparents and a little sister, while my parents go out to work every year.
     When I was very young, I really didn’t know the taste of worry, because my parents didn’t control with me, my grandparents spoiled me and my little sister always accused me of being a heel. So at that time, I lived a life without any affection. When my parents phoned us and asked us if we missed them, I and my little sister always played with laughing and said “No”.
     Each year when the Mid-Autumn Day comes, my grandma always likes to make ciba with new glutinous rice. The fresh glutinous rice is first boiled and steamed, then be pounded fine with stone mortar, and then be balled and rolled into a cake, and last be wrapped with a layer of sesame seeds outside. Eating it, you can feel it waxy, soft and savory. I am very surprised that why my usually busy grandma has spare time to make such delicious food on the Mid-Autumn day.

 

 

       At the night of this Mid-Autumn Day, my grandparents moved out a small table in the yard as usual, and then put food and wine, of course including ciba. My grandma cut the round ciba cake into six parts with a knife, and then divided them to us. When eating out our own share, I and my little sister enviously stared at the remaining two parts in the plate. My grandma understood our thought, and then asked us “who will help your father to eat this part? And who will help your mother to eat this one?” My little sister and I rushed to raise our hands and said: “I help my father” “I help my mother” for fearing of being grabbed by the named old elf grandpa. Usually my grandpa likes fighting in jest or for fun with us, who is always accused by grandma as “Not like the old or the young”. However, tonight grandpa didn’t have interest in playing with us, and just simply drank with few words. Seeing his depression, we tried to make him happy, and said: cGrandpa, you eat one” “Grandpa, I also give you one”. “I don’t eat it” he said, who seemed to pique.
  I quietly asked my grandma: “You make him angry?” “No person makes him angry! He is always angry in each Mid-Autumn day.” Then she told my grandpa, “Please be happy. Don’t make the children unhappy.” Grandma’s words played a role, and my grandpa smiled at once, who said “Grandchildren, shall we play a game? I will award you with five yuan if you can recite a poem describing the moon.” My sister recited quickly: “In the Quiet Night, so bright a gleam on the foot of my bed! Could there have been a frost already?” I was also not far behind and quickly recited: “Looking at the bright moon which is still the moon in the Qin Dynasty and the majestic city which is still the city in the Han Dynasty, I realize that people who go out the city for marching have not come back.” My sister badgered with my grandpa and asked: “You recite one poem, you recite one!”. Lovingly looking at my sister and me, my grandpa cleared his throat and recited with wagging his head back and up: “When will the moon rise? I ask the god with my wine cup in my hand.” How do I forget the poem? I just learned it from Chinese textbook? It’s Su Shi’s poem Prelude to Water Melody. While I thought about it, my grandpa had recited: “We should not feel regret. Why the moon always becomes round when people part from each other?” My grandpa dragged the three characters of “Round-When-Part” and recited with extreme bleaking. Under the moon, I distinctly saw tears streaming down my grandpa’s eyes.
     Suddenly, I grew up and I understood my grandpa. Grandpa, you must miss your loved person who is your son and also is my father

HuaCong Middle School, BaZhong City, SiChuan Province, P.R. China
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