Blood moon

I obviously did not take this photo; I don't have a camera that fancy!

The majority of China had a lunar eclipse yesterday. I went to pick up my complementary mooncakes at the St. Regis Hotel. A classy joint full of white people-- men who golfed during the day and small children wearing polo shirts. China has some sort of weird inferiority complex; I think this must be one of the only countries in the world where foreigners are treated better than natives. I can go anywhere I want, aside from some back lanes where I obviously don't "belong" without questioning but anyone who looks Asian will be questioned by the guards who are at the entrance to all apartment complexes, office buildings and the like. And they're probably tracking them on the street cameras, too. Then again, someone at the Intelligence Ministry is probably reading this sentence, sooo... yeah.

Anyway, mooncakes are for the mid-Autumn festival which is in honor of the events of 1949. People visit places of national pride and celebrate. Mooncakes sound much better than they are... when I first heard about them, I was expecting something like cupcakes. Instead, mooncakes are small pastries with the density of bricks and filled with such delights as red bean paste, egg yolk and a single almond, and sesame seed paste. MMMMMMMM. Each filling has a meaning and tradition I don't know about and are presented to friends, neighbors and business associates. Actually, they're not THAT bad but cupcakes rule way harder even if they don't have the history of mooncakes.

So, I picked up my free mooncakes (retail value=138RMB) in their fancy box with a traditional Chinese countryside scene on it and walked two miles home under the blood moon and heat lightning.