Tuan Yuan Jie / Reunion Festival in Taiwan
In Taiwan, the Mid-Autumn Festival is celebrated though out the country. However, unlike mid-autumn festivals in other countries, in Taiwan the food most synonymous withthe festival is barbecue instead of mooncake.
Asking Taiwanese people what they plan to do on Chinese moon cake festival, the most likely answer is barbecue.
A national holiday in Taiwan, this festival is a time of family gatherings, thus called also as Reunion Festival / Tuan Yuan Jie (???) / . Aside from barbeque, pomelos are eaten, as are moon cakes, whose roundness symbolizes unity.
Traditionally a family event, Mid-Autumn Festival cookouts are very boisterous affairs, and Taiwan’s friendly people often invite passers-by to join in the fun.
Among the various activities on the Festival, Shang Yue (Full Moon Admiring, ??) or the moon gazing is also one of the most popular.
Source: http://sgholiday.com/2010/08/moon-cake-festival-2010/
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Hong Kong Mid Autumn Festival
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If you’ve seen signs for the Hong Kong Mid-Autumn Festival, Lantern Festival and Moon Cake Festival, let us wipe away your confusion: they are in fact one and the same.
Hong Kong’s Mid-Autumn Festival, as it is popularly known in the city, is, aside from Chinese New Year, Hong Kong’s biggest festival.
Chinese moon cake festival sees the city draped in colourful ribbons and decorated with elaborate displays of lanterns, while restaurants will be serving up a variety of festival mooncakes, all this, as well as parades, dragon dances and celebrations around the city.
The date for the festival is set by the autumn equinox, when the moon is at its brightest and as with most Hong Kong festivals is attached the to the lunar cycle. Although festivities take place in the days around the festival, 2009’s main festival day is set for October 3rd.
Legend Behind the Festival
What really turned the festival into the crowd-pleaser it is today was a man named Liu Bowen. In a plot straight out of Hollywood, Liu was part of 14th century rebel movement aimed at kicking China’s mongol overlords back over the border.
Liu came up with the ingenious plan to organize the uprising by concealing the message “Rise against the Tartars on the 15th day of the eighth moon, now the main day for the festival, inside moon cakes. The Mongols didn’t eat moon cakes, so they would never know.
The rebellion was a success and moon cakes and the festival have been a firm fixture on the lunar calendar ever since.
In recent years, Mooncake makers have been getting creative with their fillings, from Haagen Dazs to green tea check our our Top Eight Mooncake Flavours.
Source: http://gohongkong.about.com/od/festivalprofiles/p/midautumnfestiv.htm
The History Of Led Zeppelin
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Led Zeppelin were one of the most important British rock groups of the seventies. He is the most successful artists in music history and among the innovators of rock in general.
The history of Led Zeppelin is one of incredible sales success, critical failure and innovation in the field of rock and roll. The band took their love of American blues music and turned things up to 11, adding John Bonham’s pounding rhythms and the hard and heavy guitar of Jimmy over top of Robert Plant’s soaring vocals. While there had been other bands of that era, like Vanilla Fudge, who had experimented with the same type of sound, it wasn’t until Led Zeppelin came along and perfected it that the first wave of what would eventually become heavy metal started to surge in popularity.
Led Zeppelin is not only credited with giving rise to metal, which some musicologists trace back to the ultra-heavy riffing in the song ‘Whole Lotta Love’, but the band may have also recorded the first punk song. ‘Communications Breakdown’ has frequently been cited as the beginning of the punk style of playing, and Johnny Ramone himself once stated that the inspiration for his guitar style came from Jimmy Page’s rapid downstrokes in that very song.
Led Zeppelin were also innovators in the way they dealt with both the music business and their self-image. They refused to release any of their songs as singles, preferring instead to let their albums form a cohesive musical unit. Only under great protest was ‘Whole Lotta Love’ eventually given the single treatment, and even then only in the United States – not their native England.
This attitude provided a great deal of leeway to radio DJs, since they were free to play any of the tracks off of their albums as opposed to those which were being promoted as singles by the record label. Led Zeppelin were at the forefront of what would later be termed the ‘album-oriented rock’ radio movement. In a similar fashion, the band preferred to keep television and film appearances to a minimum, stating that they wanted to connect with their audiences in a live environment.
The band was able to achieve this level of autonomy due to the fact that while critics hated their particular brand of rock and roll, audiences could not get enough. In the history of Led Zeppelin, each of their albums went platinum at bare minimum, with Led Zeppelin IV selling 23.2 million units alone. Their incredible staying power on the charts and in the hearts of their fans even allowed them to set up their own label, Swan Song, to which they signed classic rock radio stalwarts Bad Company in 1973.
Source: http://www.floweradvisor.com.sg/lifestyle/interests/music/130291/the_history_of_led_zeppelin/
See Also : Mooncake, Mid autumn festival, Chinese moon cake festival