Zhong Qiu Jie Kuai Le!

Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival (Zhong Qiu Jie in Chinese). The date is based on the lunar calendar (8th month, 15th day), and it also known as the Moon festival or the Lantern festival in other Asian nations. In China, we ate lots of mooncakes. I've seen a few here in New York. We do, after all, have almost 400,000 people of Chinese ancestry living here!

I have a mideterm in my statistics class on Tuesday. I went to ask questions of the teaching assistant this afternoon. She told me she is a 5th year Ph.D. student from Shenyang. She almost fell over when I told her I was familiar with the capital of Liaoning province and the big Mao statue there. Anyway, she had to leave early for a Mid Autumn Festival party. Afterwards, I went over to look for free food on campus! I did discover an all-Korean party celebrating Ch'usǒk (the Korean name for Mid-Autumn festival), but I didn't go. Anyway, for the first time since 2003, I didn't eat any mooncakes on Mid Autumn day.