Moon festivals

20181202

Footnote on the moon festival: It is a festival celebrating the moon that, ironically, does not follow any lunar calendar. It's held sometime during fall, when the moon's appearances and daylight are expected to stop overlapping, to celebrate the coming of winter, and related tasks like stocking up on resources.

If the moon is not visible during the festival due to conditions like cloudy weather, this is usually interpreted as an omen of a harsh winter, and as such a colder coming summer (which is bad, because harsh winters are harsh, but also good because hot summers often lead to fires and crap crops). Seeing how this omen is an overall good one, there will be even more celebration and harder partying in years where the moon is not visible during the festival. Foggy scenes of drunk people.

Many other smaller festivities are also held during and around the moon festival, like for example: the homecoming celebration (leading up to the moon festival), in which families gather around their elders to celebrate them and their longevity or mourn the lack thereof if there's a lack of elders, marriages (around or during the moon festival), which are often held off for the moon festival (indirectly causing another holiday, more on that later), and various elections (mostly on the day before the moon festival).

Typical pattern for a wooden disc covered in cloth put on doors during moon festivals. The central glyph, as well as the 8 surrounding it (4 pairs) are regionally the same, but the rest of the pattern may vary by individual

RELATED TO OTHER DISCS HUNG ON DOORS: LINK?