Don’t ask me how if these stories are true…I heard it from others too.

 

A friend from AoG told me this:

Once upon a time, there was a pair of star-crossed lovers, the man Kakhee (or was it Charke?) and his lady, Moonah. Being star-crossed – they were from different denominations - it was natural that they were forbidden to be together. Kakhee was extremely sorrowed by their fate (this time the hero had the weaker emotion role) that he wanted to commit suicide. He was ready to jump down from a tall building when Moonah wanting to rescue him prepared his most favourite delicacy, a type of pastry known as the Lotus Cake (basically what we know as the basic mooncake lah). Nonetheless, Moonah was a little too late, her beloved Kakhee jumped off the building before she could rescue him. Yet, miraculously, Kakhee seemed to be floating slowly, as if carried by the clouds as he reached the bottom and thus was spared of his life. At that moment, he realized that God has intervened to give him another chance of living. He wept and repented of his foolish act and accepted Moonah’s Lotus Cake. On taking a bite, they were overwhelmed with the thought of what had happened, I mean not everyday you get to see people surviving a jump from “a tall building”, that they decided to commemorate the event of divine intervention and remember the “second chance in life” by the eating of Lotus Cakes. That night was the mid-month of the eighth month of the lunar calendar. Kakhee thought that the name Lotus Cake did not sound nice. Looking at the full moon that of that night which was the witness to the event, they decided to call the pastry, yes you guessed it, mooncake.

 

A friend from the Anglican tradition told me this:

 

A long time ago in Guangzhou, there was a couple who couldn’t have children. It was their deepest desire to build a family with little kids of their own running around their home but all their effort to conceive was, apparently futile. I forgot the most part of the story, but it seemed that someone (I am not too sure of this part also), told them that eating mooncake will help them to conceive but finally they fail. There was a lesson to be learnt, homosexual relationship will not only destroy domestic joy but also impede the generation of mankind. (Most parts of the stories were lost in transmissions)

 

 

The Baptist said:

 

One day, a man was having a terrible bout of diarrhea that he was literally squatting (yes, it was a primitive squatting type) in the toilet from sunrise to sunset. The “thing” just wouldn’t stop coming out, until the Moon, I don’t know how, begin to say to the man (I guess it was a roofless toilet), “this shall be the last piece”. And true enough, after  some difficulties of pushing it out, the last of it came. And yes, you guessed it, it looked like our mooncake, and the man in commemoranting the passing of his troubles (no pun intended) made mooncakes every year.

 

The Brethren:

 

In a time when the Methodist and Presbyterian and Anglican ruled the world, bad shaped religion was prevalent. The hierachical churches robbed the laity of their rights to equal priesthood bestowed to them by Jesus Christ. Some folks, then decided to recover the true practice of church and began preaching the message of not being unequally yoked with the denominational religions. And that was, you guess it, the yoke in the mooncake appear. (a minor portion of the story was lost in transmissions).

 

The Presbyterian:

 

This happened when lotus cake was a popular pastry; it had white skin and lotus paste as its filling. In England, somewhere after the times of Jonathan Edwards, there was a young pastor who, inspired by Edwards and seeing the corruption of the society, begin preaching a series of sermons on the wrath of God’s judgment and the nearness of the day when it will be executed. On the day when the final sermon of the series was preached, the congregation experienced a deep conviction in their hearts and everyone begin to wept and cry out for repentance and salvation. A small revival broke out and the power of God was moving mightily. After the service, the Church  in adherence to their tradition came together to have their love feast. That day, someone, an old lady selling pastry (one would remember her being converted in the Methodist church, but later for some reasons she came to this assembly) brought a lot of lotus cakes to the table. Everyone began to wonder two very curious things. The large amount of lotus cakes and they were not in their usual white coloured skin. The old lady explained that the night before she overbaked the lotus cakes and their skins were burned and browned. Unable to sell them in the market and not wanting to waste food (of course she tasted the browned lotus cakes and found that they tasted good), she brought them all to the love feast. After they began to understand the whole event, someone suggested that they all eat the browned lotus cake every year on that day, you guessed it, 15th of August, to commemorate the revival in their church. Everyone happily agreed.

 

The next year, the night before the 15th of August, the old lady while preparing the brown lotus cakes for the anniversary of the revival, read in Revelation 6 that on the great of God’s wrath, the moon will turn red like blood. Inspired by the passage she decided to improvise the brown lotus cake to include the reminder of the terrible day of God’s judgment. After considering for a while, she thought that putting a chicken egg yoke in the middle of the lotus paste would remind them of the moon. But then again, it was the normal yellow moon (or at least yellow as we see it). Finally it struck her that salted egg yoke was a better choice. It looked “reddish” enough. The next day, the pastor preached a sermon, to the old woman’s surprise, on Revelation chapter 6 and spoke a bit on the bloody moon. During the love feast, everyone begin to praise God as they hear the woman’s testimony on how she was inspired to put eggyoke into the lotus cake. Someone began to suggest that they call the lotus cake, yes, you guess it, mooncake, to remind everyone that on one night, the moon will not be “yellow” but it will be “red” like blood.

 

*Can someone please share the Methodist stories? I forgot them (yes there were two versions) due to the complication of their plot.

 

(P/S: These stories were made up in a game we played in a mooncake festival gathering hosted by a friend. Each were required to tell the origin of mooncake fest. according to their denomination. Not meant to be offending to any denominations/traditions)