![]() LIU: On the moon, rather than liquid water, we may have water ice like glaciers on Earth. Her concept of the moon is more scientific these days. They carried paper lanterns with candles. So looking at the moon, I'm always trying to see the rabbit under the tree.ĭEL BARCO: Liu says her family didn't have much money, but each Moon Festival, they would celebrate by eating elaborate feasts followed by mooncakes. YANG LIU: There is a rabbit trying to make immortal elixir potions, and there's the moon. Growing up, she was told another myth about goddess Chang'e, her pet and a 500-foot-tall tree. The moon is something she's contemplated since she was a child in the Henan province of central China near the Yellow River. The trays rotate like a carousel, sounding eerie and celestial.ĭEL BARCO: Yang Liu is a lunar scientist at Caltech and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The bakers brush the hand-stamped mooncakes with duck egg yolk, then place them on racks inside a huge 15-foot-wide oven to bake. But birthday cakes are needed, and that's sort of kept us afloat so far.ĭEL BARCO: She says the pandemic has shut down the community's annual Moon Festival, but customers are still buying Phoenix Bakery's fresh mooncakes made with techniques handed down for generations. ![]() You know, all our wedding cake orders got canceled, the quinceaneras, the graduations. Even during the pandemic, there's always birthdays. And my mother's thinking actually was, people always celebrate with sweets. She says her mom and dad moved to LA in 1938.ĬHAN CEPPI: They started the bakery because they miss the sweets from China. It's given as a gift.ĭEL BARCO: They both grew up in the bakery, watching their parents work. KATHY CHAN CEPPI: The symbolism of the mooncake, of course, is it's round like the moon. Chan's 75-year-old cousin Kathy Chan Ceppi runs the bakery. Chan, who's 64, was born and raised in LA and remembers his family eating mooncakes in front of altars where they prayed to the moon goddess during the festival. He and the other bakers then pound out each mooncake to be baked. And as you can see, it's stamped in Chinese, which I can't read, so I translated it.ĭEL BARCO: Youlen Chan says his father brought the wooden molds from China to the family's bakery decades ago. YOULEN CHAN: These are the molds that we use to decorate with. They fold up each cake and press it into a well-worn paddle with designs carved into it. Bakers roll out dough and fill each square with red bean paste, lotus or a mixture of ham and dried fruit. Phoenix Bakery in LA's Chinatown has been making these treats by hand for 82 years. And she waits for him on the moon above.ĭEL BARCO: Part of the celebration involves lighting up paper lanterns and eating handmade pastries with sweet or savory fillings - mooncakes. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character, singing) Then she floated, leaving her true love. ![]() When his apprentice tried to steal it, Chang'e swallowed it instead. As a reward, the gods gave him a pill to make him immortal. On Earth, she married an archer named Houyi, who shot down nine of the ten suns around Earth so they wouldn't burn up the planet. MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: The upcoming Netflix animated musical "Over The Moon" retells the myth of the moon goddess Chang'e. NPR's Mandalit del Barco reports on some celebrations of the harvest moon. It's celebrated around Asia and also in the U.S. The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, begins today. ![]()
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