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Looking for the Moon  by Mo Rui Qiu
D espite the rain that sprinkled our Jingxi town last night,
we ambled along the main streets looking for the full moon.
Yesterday was Mid-Autumn Festival, the 15th day of the 8th month on the lunar calendar. Though it was the full moon day, our search was in vain! Clouds covered the bright sphere.

Never mind, we also went to watch Zhuang children lā tù zǐ. At first, I couldn’t figure out what they meant when they said, “On Mid-Autumn Festival, the children will all go out to lā tù zǐ (拉兔子).” Lā tù zǐ means “pull along a rabbit.” This phrase sounds so much like lā dù zǐ (拉肚子 ), which means “have diarrhea.” Many of us foreigners misunderstood what our Southern Zhuang friends were telling us. We tried to imagine why the local children would go out to the main street to “have diarrhea.” I was certainly familiar with eating

Rabbit
A toddler peers into her fringed-paper rabbit, watching the flickering candle.

Jingxi, Guangxi
moon cakes on Mid-Autumn festival, but this was something totally new!

Naturally, one little sound cleared up that misunderstanding. Tiny tots pull glowing fringed-paper rabbits along the street. It’s so cute to watch! Wobbly little legs totter along to show off the design. Wobbly wooden wheels support the colorful artistic inventions. A flickering candle stands inside to make the rabbit glow. The rabbit design honors the rabbit in the moon that was sent to carve out medicine as punishment. In recent years, peacocks, airplanes, and even tanks have joined the paper parade!

On our walk, I also noticed tables standing beside doorways. Fruit, moon cakes, incense, and burning candles covered the makeshift altars. My neighbor explained that people are sacrificing to the goddess of the Moon. She said that if it hadn’t been raining, many people would have gone to the temple beside the lake to worship the moon. What happens to the goodies afterwards? The family and guests help eat them! So, even if there was no moon in the sky, we certainly found plenty of moon cakes on our walk.