A year ago, in the Chinese calendar, I was on a plane, coming back to HK from 6 weeks in Europe. I know it was a year ago, because tonight is the Mid-Autumn Festival, and last year I arrived to find an email from a friend inviting me to join them to celebrate the festival on the beach at Shek O. I got in, dumped my baggage, had a quick wash, and headed out - as far as I remember, what we saw on the beach was largely groups of friends and families, barbecuing and lighting candles and lightsticks. I had been in HK for the festival the year before, but since I didn't have much of a social life at the time, I'm pretty sure I just marked it as a random day off work.

So what's the Mid-Autumn Festival all about? I don't know - and I don't think a lot of my Chinese friends and colleagues are all that bothered. They'll be able to tell me what the traditions are, but I doubt most of them care that much about the origin of the festival. Modern Hong Kong has a slightly odd connection to traditional Chinese festivals and superstitions - people here, in general, are very pragmatic, but they also tend to stick to traditions. As an example, a lot of shops have a visible shrine next to their door, and/or a waving cat in their window or behind their counter. Another tradition - which I'm not quite sure about - is allegedly a feng shui thing about putting a step at an entrance to stop bad spirits (dragons, luck, etc.) from getting in. I don't know if that's actually the reason, but it's pretty uncommon to see a shop or building entrance in Hong Kong without a step.

Anyway, back to the festival. The actual festival takes place at night, under a full (if cloud-covered, this year) moon, and mooncakes, candles and lanterns feature heavily in the activities, along with a large extended-family meal. As well as the public holiday, technically 'the day after the mid-autumn festival', it's common for offices and at least smaller shops to close early to allow staff to get home for the festive meal - my office officially closed at 3pm, and my local laundry closed at 5 rather than their usual 8. The MTR will apparently run all night tonight, as it does at Christmas and on both New Years ('secular' and Chinese), but I don't know what might be going on at, say, 2am to make it worthwhile - if it's particularly exciting, I'll report back.

In the meantime, I'm waiting at an MTR station to meet a friend to head over to Victoria Park to see a lantern, uh, thing. Dunno if it's big or small, dunno if there's anything like the New Year Market alongside it, dunno much - but that's a lot of the point of doing this 'living in Hong Kong' thing, do do things I don't know about, without expectations. Oh, and this entire entry was written on my Treo, on a train or at the station...