The Origin Of The Mid-Autumn Festival

The Wang Mu and Hou yi are characters in Chinese fairy tales

According to legend, the origin of Mid-autumn Day is that Hou Yi occasionally met Wang Mu’s empress and asked for a drug that would let people not die.

Wang Mu empress gave Hou Yi the drug, and Hou Yi gave his wife Change to keep it. But the thief knew this thing and wanted to steal it from Change and Hou Yi’s home. Change ate the drug, and fly to the moon, and became immortal.

Hou Yi felt very sad, but he could only overlook the moon on Mid-autumn Day, and eat mooncakes to show him missing his wife Change. Since then, people start to celebrate Mid-autumn Day by eating mooncakes and admiring the round moon.

The people in the past gathered with their family members on this day, and this day became a festival， it is the origin of Mid-autumn Day.