Mid-Autumn Festival and the super sized mooncake

Image from CCTV's coverage

Today is the official day of the Mid-Autumn Festival - or Moon Festival - or Lantern Festival - or Children's Festival. Much like the Thanksgiving holiday with its roots deep in agriculture, it has become a time more for family and giving thanks for those around you, and while different types of celebrations happen in different parts of the world, one of the main staples is the mooncake filled with anything and everything.

But a 13 ton mooncake?

Citizens in a dozen of Chinese cities had opportunities to taste super moon cakes while the Mid-Autumn Festival approaching. In Lanzhou, capital of northwest China's Gansu Province, hundreds of people ate up a 40-kilogram moon cake within one hour on Wednesday. It took the chefs nearly six hours to make the cake, which is 2.8 meters in diameter.

One month ago, a super large moon cake weighing nearly 13 tons, was made in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province. Referred to as the "No. 1 of Chinese Moon Cakes," this cake is 8.15 meters in diameter and 20 centimeters in height, and has a coating weighing one ton, and filling weighing 12 tons.

It took ten chefs more than 10 hours to make the king cake.

More Festival News

CCTV 2007 Festival Coverage

Mid-Autumn Festival kicks off today in China. People across the country are preparing to celebrate in many different ways. In Fuzhou, east China, the Mid-Autumn Festival means building towers of tiles. People do this so their lives and fortunes will grow just as high. Overseas Chinese and those living in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan are heading to their hometown, Fujian, to spend the festival with their families. The local airport witnessed a 40 percent surge of passengers

Mid-Autumn for disadvantaged and blind children

In the festival called "The festive night of full moon" organized for the eighth year, the children had a fun day participating in the lantern and banquet decorating and karaoke contests, as well as watching lion dances, and music and circus performances. On this occasion, State President Nguyen Minh Triet and other leaders of the city's government joined the children to celebrate the festival.

Giving gifts down, barbecues up during festival, poll shows

The gift giving culture among office workers is on the decline, but the practice of having barbecues during the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday is rising unabated, the results of an online survey released yesterday showed.