Happy Pumpkin Carving Day

Hello everybody! We are coming to the close of a very fun, relaxing weekend and just wanted to share a few pictures with you before we started another week of school. As all of you are aware, Halloween is around the corner and no such holiday exists here in China. The closest thing we have here is the Mid-Autumn Festival which is celebrated at the end of September. The holidays have their similarities, but the differences are funny. In America we eat sweets and pumpkin (kind of) and in China they eat what are called "moon cakes". They look delicious but even the fruit flavored ones are difficult to swallow. It's hard to describe them - a mushy, round, pie-style casing surrounding a filling of various kinds (fruit, meat, egg yolk - to name a few). I think I prefer sweets. In America it's easy to say that for Halloween we have either a fun festival, the kids dress up and get candy, or something of the sort. When we ask the Chinese what they do, their simple response is hilarious - "We look at the moon". While the moon is full, bright and beautiful during this time, imagining billions of Chinese spending this day looking at the moon just makes me crack up. But that's what they say.

As part of "celebrating" this year we bought quite a few pumpkins and had a carving day yesterday with Tiff's weekend tutors and also with the Edminsons. Equipped with the most sophisticated carving knives on the market, we made those pumpkins the happiest faces they could have ever asked for. And in keeping with the spirit of celebrating a holiday on foreign soil, we even carved a Chinese flag for good measure! We hope you enjoy the pictures of us having a grand ol' time getting our hands covered in pumpkin gunk. We also hope that you enjoy this next Wednesday and stay safe in whatever you do. Take care!