Mid-Autumn Memories

(DN) - Another Mid-Autumn Festival has come, awakening in everyone's heart countless memories of childhood. For me, a child born and raised in the poor countryside of the North, it is no exception. My childhood was associated with years of many difficulties and deprivation, but filled with laughter and simple joy.

Back then in the countryside, for us 8x, 9x generations, Mid-Autumn Festival was very different from now. Back then, there weren’t as many modern toys as there are now, no battery-powered flashing lights, and certainly no trays full of candies, fruits…

Every year, starting from the end of the seventh lunar month, my whole neighborhood, from the elderly to the children, began to prepare for the Mid-Autumn Festival, including setting up a mid-autumn camp and preparing a performance for the competition on the full moon day of the eighth lunar month. During that time, we, the children aged 10 to 15, often gathered in the yard of the village cultural house to practice the Team ritual.

At that time, there were no extra classes, so training to prepare for the Mid-Autumn Festival camping trip was the top priority. We practiced all the Team rituals. In the early days, our legs and arms were not even, some had left legs, some had right legs, some had both arms and legs. But after only a few practice sessions, the ranks gradually became neat and regular. We also considered it our joy, our honor, our duty.

Then, on the day of the camp, from early morning, we children gathered at the village cultural house. Everyone was eager and busy helping the adults stretch the canvas, fold bunches of colorful paper flowers, and stick bright red and green ribbons to the camp gate. As soon as the camp frame was set up, everyone rushed in like a swarm of bees, each one fighting to find their own "territory". That was truly wonderful spiritual food for our childhood.

I remember, back then, we couldn’t afford to buy sparkling star lanterns, so the kids in my neighborhood got together to make their own mid-autumn lanterns using bamboo strips, glue, and colored paper. This was also an opportunity for us to become craftsmen, creating our own products. Lantern making sessions were often very fun. We assigned each child a task: one would split the bamboo and whittle the strips, one would take care of the colored paper to stick, and the skillful one would be in charge of assembling the lanterns and decorating them.

Every year, the star lanterns we make are never perfect. The sharp corners are warped, the glue is smudged, the paper is uneven. But for us, they are still the most beautiful products. Even though they are deformed, they are still meaningful and when lit with candles, the lanterns suddenly become brilliant and sparkling in the full moon festival night.

During the Mid-Autumn Festival in my hometown, there is an extremely delicious fruit called star apple. I remember when I was very young, my grandmother taught my sisters and I to use red strings to weave beautiful star apple baskets. Big star apples were used to weave big baskets, small star apples were used to make small baskets. The star apple baskets had diamond-shaped eyes like the eyes of a net. After weaving, put the star apples in. Hold the star apple basket in your hand and carry it around the neighborhood. Occasionally, bring it up to your nose, press it against the smooth skin of the fruit, inhale the sweet fragrance and cherish it passionately. At night, carefully hang the star apple basket on the headboard or in front of the window so that the fragrance spreads throughout the house. After playing with the star apple until the fruit is dotted with quail eggs, then use your hand to knead it until it is soft and then eat it. The meat is yellow, soft and sweet like honey, and at the end, it has a distinctive astringent taste - that flavor I still cannot forget.

At that time, material things were scarce, so every gift, especially moon cakes, became a longing and expectation of every child. On the full moon day of the eighth lunar month, my friends and I would go to the village cultural house to receive moon cakes.

Mid-Autumn Festival gifts in those days were usually a pair of moon cakes, sticky rice cakes and some sweets. Back then, the types of cakes were not as rich as they are now, moon cakes only had one kind of mixed filling. The sticky rice cakes had a sweet aroma of sticky rice and a sweet bean filling, eating one bite left a lingering feeling in the mouth. After receiving the gifts, none of us dared to eat them right away. We had to wait until the party under the moon, when our mother cut the cake into small pieces and gave each of us a portion to enjoy.

After finishing the feast with our families, we children rushed out to the street to carry lanterns under the moon. Each child held a lantern they had made themselves, some played drums, some danced with lions, some hummed familiar nursery rhymes... Just like that, the whole group went around the neighborhood until late at night before returning home.

The full moon, those moonlit nights were the innocent childhood. Those were the simple, genuine memories that made up a part of our generation’s childhood. Now, those things are only in memory, giving way to more modern Mid-Autumn seasons.

My Duyen (Dong Phu Commune General Service Center)

Source: https://baodongnai.com.vn/van-hoa/202510/ky-uc-trung-thu-a1d1526/