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你好,欢迎收听随行汉语。 Welcome to Takeaway Chinese.
I'm Niu Honglin with Steve Hathorley.
Hi, Steve.
Hello, how are you doing?
Great.
I feel great.
Good.
It's always, you know, different time of the year, different feelings, and different seasons and different atmosphere.
It changes the surroundings.
I think when I'm growing up I didn't used to feel like this, but these years I feel like the surrounding atmosphere, the environment and even the weather of the day affect my overall morale a little bit.
I don't know why.
Oh, that's interesting.
Yeah.
I've met people like that before, who say if it's cloudy and or rainy, they'll feel down a little bit.
I've also used to, you know.
I've also heard people say that, like during a season, they might have a different mood for a season.
I think there's a term for that, like seasonal something disorder, but that's obviously quite serious.
Yeah.
I'm not that serious.
I'm not suggesting that you are.
Yeah, that's a different topic for a different day, I suppose.
Yeah, I think I know what you mean.
You know, in the midst of this time of year, colors change.
You know, you have the beautiful autumn leaves.
The temperatures are changed now.
Still warm in the daytimes, but quite cool at night and yeah, it's a change of season.
It's a different time of year.
Yeah.
It's not always negative, even if it's a cloudy day or rainy day.
In rainy days, if I have the choice, like during holiday times that we're spending and I would choose to stay in bed, read a book, cuddle my cat or my kid.
So that's the kind of thing I would prefer to do.
And in gloomy, a little bit gloomy autumn days, you see the falling of leaves, the changing of color.
So you associate that with gloom?
For me, that's a time that I really love.
It makes me want to wear a turtleneck.
I don't wear turtlenecks ever, you know, turtleneck with sweaters.
But it just goes so well with that kind of like cup of hot cocoa or something and a nice book or a nice record to listen to.
Yes, yes, yes.
That was my point.
I'm not usually down or feeling sad because of it.
It makes me realize, huh, it's approaching the second half of the year or even later in the year.
I would like, sometimes I would think about, ah, what I have achieved for the past year.
What are some plans for next year?
It's a relatively positive kind of sentimentality.
Just a kind of a looking back on the year moment.
That could be because, you know, as the temperatures get colder, you feel that winter is coming.
Yeah.
People talk about that, right?
As soon as fall starts to come, they start to talk about winter.
And maybe that's why you associate that with like oh, these moments of introspection or looking back a little bit.
Yeah, and since you mentioned the seasonal something disorder, there is a Chinese idiom, maybe not for that, but describing the kind of sentiment or the kind of phenomenon.
We say 悲秋伤春.
悲秋.
伤春.
伤春.
So 悲 and 伤 carry the meaning of sad and mourning for and just not happy about and being negative about.
Oh, that's associated with negativity?
Yeah.
And yes, and chill is the season autumn and chun is the spring.
So this is used to describe someone who is always very sentimental and easy to feel the negative triggers in nature.
And they will be sad about no matter if it's spring or autumn, they're sad.
Yeah.
Seasonal affective disorder.
Ah.
Makes sense.
Makes sense.
It's a mood disorder subset in which people who typically have normal mental health throughout most of the year exhibit depressive symptoms at the same time each year.
I feel like this show is going down a path that I did not intend it to.
To go down.
We're not talking about mental disorders today.
No, no, we're not.
We're talking about different time of the year and different seasons and different mood.
But there's one thing that is very positive about autumn days.
Here in China, usually the National Day holiday that we're celebrating these days, as well as the Mid-Autumn Festival festival, coincide with each other.
Sometimes they're just back to back, sometimes they're even together, like the year 2025 and mid-autumn festival plus national day holiday.
These are holiday days and mid-autumn festival is also very significant for family reunion for chinese people, so you would take the days to go find your family, get together and spend some time together and you know really live.
This is the other time of year when it's really a family holiday, right?
One is the Spring Festival and the other is the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Yes.
I don't know.
Is one more important than the other, do you think?
Oh, Spring Festival is definitely the most important.
Oh, okay.
Yes.
Yeah.
Why do you say that?
Why is that?
Well, spring festival is not only a major festival for family reunion.
It's also signifying the start of a year, the end of a year.
You would do well-rounded summarize about your past year and making plans.
And it has been also well, I think traditionally.
It's because it's the time in winter days where ancient people who are working in the fields, in agriculture activities, more often do not have that much to do.
So they would have time to celebrate.
Whereas mid-autumn festival... Busy time.
Yes, harvesting.
Harvesting time.
Yeah, so different vibes.
Harvesting time is nice.
You have abundant harvest.
It's the season of gaining.
It's good.
It's good.
Yeah, it's just different.
Yeah, this is canada's thanksgiving time.
Oh yeah, it makes sense.
Yeah, it's exactly the the same time as here in china.
I don't mean the exact same date, but yeah, within the same period.
Um, and it's the same kind of celebration.
It's very much a family time of year a lot of focus on food, A lot of focus on reconnecting.
Yeah, it's an important time of year.
I'm curious.
You've spent a mid-autumn festival here in China already.
Yes, I do.
We went to the Great Wall during that time.
Oh, that is a good activity to do.
We went to the Great Wall and we went to the Temple of Heaven and we went to the Summer Palace Festival.
Yeah, good choices.
Yeah, because we don't live so far from any of those places.
There's different spots of the Great Wall that you can go to when you live in Beijing.
We went to the.
I think it's considered to be the number one tourist spot because it's the closest to downtown, the Badaling location.
Everybody told me not to go there.
During the national holiday.
You won't listen.
My wife and I discussed it and we said let's go anyway, just to see, because we knew it was going to be mayhem in terms of crowds.
But we wanted to experience that kind of thing because to know, just to know.
Yes.
And I can say it was insanely crowded, but it wasn't as bad as I thought.
The space around there was so large that you can easily go to a place that isn't necessarily that crowded.
But once you get to a certain section of the wall where it starts to ascend and go up, and if you get to the top you're going to have the best views.
That was like you've seen an escalator at a shopping mall where it's just there's all people on the escalator.
Right.
That's what the Great Wall looked like.
I took a picture of it because I've never seen that many people.
And it was just a cool thing to see.
So we avoided that.
And then the traffic to get there and to get home was just, yeah.
Our taxi driver, we stopped and ate food together on the way home.
Yeah.
Because the traffic was so bad.
We discussed, we made a decision together to stop and get some food.
Yeah again, because China's mid-autumn festival, 中秋节 by the way, 中秋节 so 中 is mid 秋 is autumn, and 节日 festival so mid-autumn festival usually it's celebrated really close to the national day holiday and its major traveling season, so it makes total sense.
But for those of you who are not that familiar with the holiday or the festival just yet, it is one of the most important traditional festivals in chinese culture, typically celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, which usually falls in september or early october, which explains how come it's so close to the national day holiday.
So the national day holiday is October the 1st, which is a fixed, a relatively fixed day on a calendar, Gregorio calendar, whereas the Mid-Autumn Festival exact date is a little bit flexible because it's based on the traditional Chinese calendar, which has something to do with the lunar calendar and stuff.
So it's a little bit different.
It's a little bit different every year.
And the festival is also known as the moon festival.
Or some people would even call it the moon cake festival.
Because moon cakes are important.
They are yummy.
They are.
And they have a lot of calories.
Oh, of course.
We call them 月饼.
月饼.
月 is the moon.
饼 is a cake.
Yep.
So literally moon cake.
月饼.
But definitely it has the wraps inside.
But it's not a wrap that you put together with your hand.
There are molds making sure the shape is perfect.
The patterns aren't.
They're very pretty.
Yeah, the patterns are even if you want to, it can be customized.
You just customize the mold or you would have the pattern you want.
And that's the wrap and also the fillings.
There are different flavors of the fillings.
We say the wrap would be the bing pi.
Bing is the cake.
Pi is the peel or wrap.
And xia is the filling.
What's your favorite, by the way?
Oh, my favorite would be the yolk one.
I like yolk.
The egg yolk?
Yes.
Oh, I don't think I've had that one.
You should.
It's really tasty.
Recently, I noticed that my palate favored the taste that is with a blend of salty and sweet.
I want to put them together.
I don't know if you have ever tried this, but in my porridge I would sometimes put in some salty peanuts and also some raisins.
Okay.
And the blend is quite interesting.
I don't want them to perfectly mix together.
I want there to be layers of tastes.
Sweet and salty together.
Yes.
And it can happen in an egg yolk mooncake.
I'll try to have one.
Yeah.
The filling is sweet and you put a salty salted egg yolk inside, so you can, You know, have a bite and feel all everything.
Yum.
Very tasty.
Very, very yum.
Oh, by the way, 咸蛋黄.
咸蛋黄.
咸 is salty, so it's salted.
Egg yolk is 蛋黄.
蛋 is egg.
黄 is the yolk part.
咸蛋黄.
咸蛋黄.
And 咸蛋黄 is usually paired up with 莲蓉.
莲蓉.
莲蓉 is lotus seed paste.
Lotus seed paste.
It goes on the inside?
Yes.
I think the taste or the texture is similar to red bean paste.
I was going to say, I think that's the one that I had.
They come in different colors.
I mean, the lotus bean paste can be different colors.
It can.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I had a pack of them.
I ate them all at the same time.
I couldn't stop eating them.
But the inside of it... was all different colors.
And it had a, it was kind of a, how do I describe it?
Kind of a hard interior, but like fudge, I guess.
If you're familiar with that is like like harder than cake but still soft enough to bite through easily.
Right.
Oh, that's the Lotus.
Okay.
Yeah.
I had a lot of those.
Those are amazing.
And the dou sha, the red bean paste one, it's also quite tasty.
It's creamier, I think.
Another thing about mooncake is that people view mooncake differently.
When we talk about the paste, we talk about the wrap, the bing pii.
Xia or xian liao, we talk about these different parts of the mooncake.
But a mooncake is very heavy.
In the sense that it's a mixture of, it's a pastry, but it's with a lot of butter or oil in it.
And they're kind of physically heavy too.
It's like a little hockey puck, kind of.
Like a delicious little hockey puck.
And the thing is in Chinese.
We would even use the word to describe it, because it's heavy and it's dense.
And for some people, even just half of a mooncake would give them the energy or calorie they need for half a day.
Yeah, and for other people, six mooncakes gives them the energy they need for half a day.
But when we say zha shi, we're talking about the kind of food that when you chew on them, when you eat them, when you digest them and when you process them in your body, it takes a bit longer than, for example, just vegetable or something.
It's energy bomb.
They're very satisfying to eat because of how thick and heavy they are.
I don't know why it feels... I don't know.
I can't describe it because I can't compare it to anything else that I've tried before.
I don't like the red bean on the inside, but that's just my own personal taste.
But every other one that I tried, I absolutely love them.
You have to keep them away from me.
I'll eat the whole thing if you And with mooncake being a traditional delicate delight in the Chinese culture for thousands of years, people nowadays, you know people, we live in the day and age of modern technology, of internet.
Our attention span is shorter.
We want things to be new and good and instantly satisfying.
And people are being very creative with the fillings of mooncake.
And the colors of the outside.
The colors.
And the shape and the overall experience.
I enjoy the experience part.
A lot of places, pastry shops or tourist destinations would allow you to bring just yourself or your kid to have a mooncake making experience.
They have different modes.
You can do things to the mooncake before baking it.
And also there are different variety of mooncakes.
We have ice cream mooncakes, which essentially is just ice cream in the shape of mooncake.
Okay.
Delicious and fun to cook with your kid, family, fun time.
So the experiencing part, I enjoy.
But the being very, very creative to the extent that I would call the fillings or taste the 黑暗料理 part, not so much.
Let me explain 黑暗料理 part.
黑暗料理 黑暗 is dark, dark, dark, dark.
黑 is black, 暗 is dark, 黑暗, dark.
料理 is a fancy way to say food.
Dark food.
It's the kind of combination or creation in a certain type of food that, upon listening to the name or the concept of it, you would use the word to react to it.
That sounds negative, though.
Well, I don't know.
You don't like mooncakes?
It depends on how surprising the chefs want me to be.
For instance, we talk about sweet bean paste mooncake.
We talk about lotus seed paste mooncake, dou sha or lian rong or xian dan huang.
These are good.
I like the traditional ones.
But there's also luosifen mooncake.
You know luosifen, that is the snail noodle, the smelly, smelly, but tasty kind of noodle.
See, so the mooncakes can either be dessert style or like appetizer style, I guess.
And people get creative with what's inside.
Yes, yes.
They would create the flavor and also stinky tofu flavored mooncake.
Hey, don't talk bad about stinky tofu.
I tried it and it's not bad at all.
It actually smells stronger on the outside than it does when it's in your mouth.
How about the spicy, spicy instant noodle, South Korean style?
And they put that or that flavor in mooncake.
That doesn't seem to match.
See, that's why I said you react with...
Well, those textures don't make any sense, do they?
I mean, the exterior of a mooncake is...
I don't know that baking term for that kind of... Is it fondant?
Is that the term that chefs use?
Bakers use?
That kind of thick... Ah, it's like the crust.
Yeah, but it's not pastry though, right?
It's a different kind of... It's kind of pastry.
But it's also kind of like Play-Doh.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah, so I don't know what that is.
But anyway, it's good.
But to mix it with noodles on the inside?
Like ramen noodles or snails or...
No, but I get it, though.
I get it because people just try to come up with new and creative and fun inventive ideas for how to serve that traditional dish.
I've already made peace with the ones using meat as one of the ingredients in the filling.
And I think for the stinky tofu taste, instead of putting directly tofu in it, but just the taste as a filling is.
Not good, not bad.
It just seems unnecessary because you could just eat the tofu by itself.
You don't need to wrap it in something, right?
And that is the idea.
They want to get creative.
And there are people who enjoy them.
And it's also always a fun thing to do because it has been a traditional type for so long.
And having a little bit of novel try where creation is not the worst thing in the world.
Yeah, yeah.
Because you never know.
You might come up with something really delicious.
Yeah.
Yes.
So 月饼, that is a very important part for the mid-autumn festival.
中秋节要吃月饼。 Another thing that we've already mentioned is the family reunion part.
We say 合家团圆。
He Jia.
Tuan Yuan is a Chinese idiom.
Basically means all of the families get together and Tuan Yuan is reunion.
It's very important.
Part of the reasons that the moon cakes are round in shape is is to represent, because Chinese people believe that round things are complete.
There's a start and an end.
Yes, and they're together and you do not miss anything and you do not miss anyone in the family.
It's a very positive kind of symbol in Chinese culture.
So we want it to be round.
And another reason, or other parts of the reason definitely is that the moon cake symbolizes, mimic the shape of the moon as well.
So 合家团圆 is important.
And when the entire family gather together, we would enjoy the moon cake.
Oh, and also there are on the Chinese market, really huge round moon cakes.
I've seen those.
Yes.
And you can share them with the entire family, depending on how big the family is.
Yeah, those are quite big.
Yes.
And on top of that, another activity which I think is not that important, that common would be appreciating the moon.
Because it is the harvest moon.
Yes.
Shang Yue.
Shang Yue.
Yes, Shang means to appreciate, Xin Shang, and Yue is the moon, Yue Liang.
You make a wish, right?
Is that what people do?
No.
Making a wish is to a birthday cake, I think.
Yeah.
Well, but I think you can.
Yeah.
It's more about being grateful.
It's about being grateful and also about sometimes, especially in ancient days, even if you cannot physically be together, the entire family can look at the same moon and think about each other at the same time.
Well, to be fair, you can do that every day, still still the same.
Well yeah, that's why.
That's why you want the mid-autumn festival day to be the day that you think of the other person, so you know you're thinking about each other at the same time, without sweet yeah, instant message.
In canada, this is like a time of gratitude thanksgiving, of course yeah, so for good, i mean traditionally for a good harvest, and Family gets together and shares food together, shares a beautiful meal and spend some time.
It's the same kind of concepts.
And nowadays even people do not do moon appreciation as a major activity as much as in ancient days.
Well, we still look at the moon, or maybe nowadays we look at the moon from a different perspective because of a lot of aerospace plans and projects that China has conducted and has successfully launched.
I think we are romantic in the sense especially, for example, when it comes to the naming of certain space projects.
For instance, there is the Chang'e, which is the moon goddess.
It is the name of a space aerospace project.
And there's also multiple aerospace projects.
Yes, yes, yes.
And also Yu Tu, that is the rabbit in traditional Chinese folktale.
One, the moon goddess lives on the moon.
She has a, well, it depends.
In some tales is a pet rabbit.
She holds all the time.
And sometimes the rabbit is super smart.
The rabbit would help her working a little bit to transform herb into traditional Chinese medicine.
And she will later put the ingredient in the medicine and she'll send the medicine to to the mortal world for people, help them cure their disease or something.
And so the rabbit is also very important.
But the rabbit and the moon goddess is always together, which is why the Yutu aircraft and the Chang'e are together.
So it's quite romantic.
Anyways, I think the Mid-Autumn Festival Zhongqiujie, is quite significant in Chinese people's hearts.
Yeah.
And, at the same time, one it is like for this year, for 2025, when we celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival during the National Day holiday.
We have more time to do different things.
Locally, many different places would also put on lantern shows.
Yes.
Because appreciating lantern, even though it's more of a thing for Yuan Xiao Jie.
Lantern Festival.
Lantern Festival.
We're calling it Lantern Festival.
We appreciate lanterns and guessing riddles.
Yeah.
But...
Since we talked about appreciating the moon and get together and family going out and enjoying the nightlife a little bit, many different cities in China also provide their local citizens, as well as tourists, the kind of space activities outdoor sometimes it's a pop-up market, sometimes it's lantern display so that you can take your entire family and enjoy those.
Yeah yeah, outdoor activities, because the weather is still very cooperative right and the kids have a great time.
Yeah, it's just a really fun family time of year and and people are so busy with their work schedules, you know, just as it is in so many other countries.
You rarely get a chance to see your family members, sometimes during the year, during the regular times of year.
So using these opportunities, these big, lengthy holidays to see your family is important and fill up on mooncakes and all the other yummy goods that come along with this time of year as well.
Yes, and spending a bit of family time in parks which are decorated by these beautiful lights and lanterns, and also snacks, snack streets during nighttime very dangerous places.
You would easily be super full, but definitely some good time.
Totally agree.
We still have some holidays there.
So share with us what are your plans for the following days during the national holiday and also after the Mid-Autumn Festival.
And we would love to hear also about your holiday stories.
Tell us what kind of mooncake you like.
Oh, yes.
Yes, that too.
And that brings us to the end of today's Takeaway Chinese.
I'm Niu Honglin with Steve Hatherly here in the studio.
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感谢收听,我们下次再见。 Thanks so much.
See you next time.
