To the Moon and Back

By -Raven-

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What's There to Me?
99 Facts [You Lil Stalker, You]
51 Decisions - Kara Travis
March Ado About Nothing [31 Day Challenge]
Day One: Five Ways to Win My Heart
Day Two: Something I Feel Strongly About
Day Three: Top Three Books
Day Four: Top Three Movies
Day Five: Top Five YouTubers
Day Six: What Would I Name My Firstborn?
Day Seven: Five Pet Peeves
Day Eight: Something About Myself That Nobody Knows
Day Ten: The First 25 Songs When My Music Player Is Shuffled
Day Nine: The Thing I Am Most Proud Of
Day Thirteen: A Quote I Try to Live By
Just AG Things
My Life in Emojis
The July's Out [Challenge of the Moon]
July 1st: Top Five Characters I've Written
July 2nd: Top Three Ice-Cream Flavours
July 3rd: Three Shocking Never-Have-I-Evers
July 4th: About My Homeland
July 5th: Top Five ToS Roles
July 6th: Five Things I Like About Myself
July 7th: Five Things I Dislike About Myself
July 8th: Top Five Candies
July 9th: Three Qualities I Respect
July 10th: Favourite Artistes
July 11th: Five Qualities I Find Attractive in a Person
July 12th: Five Qualities I Find Unattractive in a Person
July 13th: A Colour That Represents Me
July 14th: My Dream Job
July 15th: All Things Bloo
July 16th: Three of My Goals in Life
July 17th: American vs British Spellings
July 18th: Top Three Hobbies
July 20th: Something That Makes Me Laugh
July 21st: Top Five Superpowers
July 22nd: Three Favourite Ways to Start a Story
July 23rd: An Odd Quirk I Have
July 24th: Two Easiest People to Talk to on Wattpad
July 25th: What I Like About Angie [@angie_z142]
July 26th: What I Like About Annie [@annlu03]
July 27th: What I Like About Clara [@magic_mockingjay]
July 28th: What I Like About Val [@SeizeThePi]
July 29th: What I Like About Moon [@TheShineOfTheMoon]
July 30th: Favourite Day of the Week
July 31st: Three Ways to End a Story
August 1st: Surprise, Kiddos
Mental Health Day I
39-Not-13 Questions
12-Not-13 Questions
Writing Resolutions 2018
Jamberry January!
January 1st | Alan | About Me: Favorite part about yourself
January 2nd | Croc | "For just three payments of $9.99..."
January 3rd | Lindsay | One-Word Prompt: Fish
January 4th | Moon | Would You Rather: Live without heating or without AC?

July 19th: Favourite Holiday of the Year

38 8 9
By -Raven-

My favourite holiday would be Christmas if we actually had larger-scale celebrations for it here. Since I'm a Chinese, though, I might as well talk about a Chinese celebration. I think that'd mean a lot more, considering the fact that we actually do celebrate these properly and actually still follow certain traditions. Of course, as most things are, these have been pretty modernised in such an anglicised country but the essence of these celebrations—family bonding and like happiness-related things—still remain.

Once again, imma try and tell you things you can't find off the Internet, which means they'll be very specific to my family and a terrible reflection of what it means to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is something we celebrate every August (? uh) and has probably got something to do with rejoicing about harvest I DON'T EVEN KNOW OMG. #InaccurateReflectionOfMidAutumn #AccurateRepresentationOfMe At this time of the year, on one specific day of the month on the Chinese calendar, the moon appears to be as full and round as it can be. Therefore, on this day, families gather to admire the moon, among other things xD

I live with my parents and maternal grandmother, but my parents and I are invited to my uncle's house every year to celebrate Mid-Autumn. My uncle (大伯) and his family are usually the hosts of such things as he's the oldest out of four brothers on my dad's side. I'm an only child but all my uncles have more than one kid so I've got a number of cousins that's big enough to cause a scene but small enough that I'm close to all of them—seven, to be exact. I'm also the oldest by a year and the youngest is seven this year! Cute bean.

The first thing we're always required to do when we walk through the door is bow down and kiss the floor. Nah I'm joking—Chinese aren't all weird mmk. But yes, I walk through the door and it's a must must must to greet all the adults by their Chinese title things. And when you come in all the kids just greet your parents and it feels a little weird but eh.

Anyway, we gather, the eight of us, and then I notice that the fourteen-year-old dude has grown again and it's like wut happened 2 ur voice and he's got funky hair now wowow and then there's the eleven-year-olds who are literally a year away from PSLE but I still see them as fivelets, and then there's the seven-year-old who is just seven and so cute and bullied. Poor bean.

After a while of TV and socialising, the ladies gossiping about our grades (eugh), the men talk about...I don't actually know what, and us small ones catching up a little bit and playing Minecraft, it's time for dinner. Dinner is home cooked by my aunt and mind you she is a good cook. It's usually the same few dishes every time, though no one minds. And also, rice. Always rice. And soup. There's only space at the table for so many people, so the parents occupy that space, preparing bowls for their children and passing it to them filled along with a spoon. Then we're all sent off to sit in front of the TV, around the low table on little plastic stools. Maids will feed the younger ones and the rest of us hold the bowls in our hands, just sitting there. These days though, because I'm the oldest, my mum often makes me sit at the dining table to engage in that dumb adult talk, claiming that there's "no space" where the others are. Hello? I've been sitting there since I was born?

The two fourteens are getting dragged into this as well though, so *troll face*

After dinner, of which I'm always the last to finish, we all evacuate into the room where there's aircon and peace. Mobile phones and iPads make an appearance. Drama ensues as someone realises he doesn't have a smart device—extra drama if it happens to be that extra whiney kid—and Minecraft happens. In survival, we usually work together although brothers might kill each other for the sake of it. In creative we just build stuff and at one point, said whiney kid was being a troll and ruining our houses with lava.

After a while, we go downstairs. Most Singaporeans live in apartments and we usually go down to the void deck or playground. It's a tradition for children to carry paper lanterns on Mid-Autumn. They're collapsible and we light candles before fixing them in and pulling them open, then let them dangle from sticks as we carry them around. They come in an assortment of colours—pink, red, green, yellow, orange. There are also electrical ones which are basically made of rubber/plastic and are squishily filled with air and fixed with LED bulbs and play annoying kiddy music. We just walk around the block with the glowing lanterns for fun, ye.

Mid-Autumn really is the festival of fire for us kids. Besides the lanterns, we play with candles and sparklers. Before we decided that was plain evil, we used to burn up boxes of candles just lighting them all and lining them up in snaking rows. At some point we'd end up building a small campfire, lying candles on the floor and dumping leaves and twigs into the mix. Somewhere along the way, the cardboard candle box will get ripped apart and thrown in as well. This, my friends, is how we sacrifice an entire box of candles, including the box.

Then there's sparklers, which is basically just us firing those sticks till they like up and dazzle, sometimes making a "double star" by burning it from the middle instead of the tip. Fireworks are illegal in Singapore, so this is about the closest you can get xD So are hedgehogs, by the way.

Also, mooncakes. So basically like Moon but put into a cake. Mooncakes are a pastry (?) traditionally filled with lotus paste and salted (?) egg yolk in the centre, which represents the moon. But as we all know it, tradition is too mainstream and the original brown skins now compete with colourful snow skins and even crispy crusts. The lotus filling has also been replaced by things like yam paste and red bean paste and the yolk in the centre can even be white chocolate.

So I'm not very sure how to end this xD I wrote too much again. Bye!

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