When the Phases of the Moon Pull the Tides of Time | 明月几时有 光阴墨潮生: #1 (First Quarter)
First Quarter Moon / Neap Tide / @11:25pm from Toronto, ON
During the pandemic lockdown, I like to watch “How-To-Wear” videos of people putting on their traditional/ethnic clothing, as the content provides a sense of connection to the outside world.
One day, I came across a video introducing the Emirati kandura, a regional variation of the Arab garment also known as a thawb or dishdasha (note1). The presenter mentions that the Emirati kandura is often worn with a long tassel-like piece called a tarboosh (plural: tarabeech; note2), dangling from the neckline.
Dating back to the nomadic history of the Bedouin people, the tarboosh is an important cultural and poetic object in Arab culture: before the travellers left home for a trip, their family members would infuse the tarboosh in fragrance, so that the scent from home could stay with the travellers during their journeys.
In history, especially during times when travelling was more difficult and long-distance communication took significantly longer, people of different civilizations had found creative ways to make the concept of home, family, and memory portable.
...人有悲欢离合，月有阴晴圆缺，此事古难全。但愿人长久，千里共婵娟。
—— 苏轼 《水调歌头·明月几时有》
“While humankind experiences joy and sadness, separations and reunions, the Moon experiences its dark eclipse or bright crescent, fullness or absence: such are historical cycles that are impossible to be broken.
I can only hope the loved ones can remain together for the longevity of time itself, and they are bathing in the same moonlight even if they are thousands of miles apart.”
- An excerpt from “Shuidiao-Getou (Water Melody)” by Su, Shi. (Translated by Eric Chengyang)
Throughout history, ancient Chinese poets had used the Moon as a symbol of remembrance, and as a medium to express complex feelings in regards to separation and distance, due to the fact that the moon is always available and has its changing phases. For instance, during the Mid-Autumn Festival in the year 1076 AD, Su, Shi (aka. Su, Dongpo; 苏东坡), a famous Song-dynasty poet wrote and addressed his famous ci to his brother from afar.
Since the date of the Mid-Autumn Festival is determined by the Chinese lunar calendar that tracks the phases of the moon, in the evening, the moon is always round, full, and whole. As indicated in Shu, Shi’s ci-poetry, the full moon not only symbolically represents reunions but also serves as a reminder for gathering.
Interestingly, the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节; on Sept. 21 in 2021) shares similarity with the Canadian Thanksgiving which took place yesterday, with regards to their approximate timing and modern festive customs.
I have always felt a special connection to the Mid-Autumn Festival because of my love and constant craving for mooncakes; unlike most Chinese festive foods, the mooncakes are not available all year round.
In Canada, Asian grocery shops and bakeries usually start to put out the mooncakes for sale, as if the shops are reminding their customers that another Mid-Autumn Festival is near, and the beloved yet brief Ontarian summer is packing its bags and is departing soon.
Since mooncakes are seasonal, each year, I always felt a bit sad when I ate the last piece of mooncake over coffee, as I wondered where the unsold, leftover mooncakes had gone after the festival.
At the end of this past summer, when I went shopping in an Asian supermarket with my mom, I saw the stacks of mooncakes at the entrance: a sight that felt so normal that I forgot we were still in a pandemic.
Seeing the boxes of mooncakes again, I recalled a conversation I had with my mom last time when we shopped together. At the time, while we were picking out mooncakes, we were discussing why some mooncake brands had such an unbelievably expensive price tag, and I jokingly told her that maybe those mooncakes’ salted egg filling contained actual gold foil.
This conversation felt so fresh and vivid, that I had the impression as if it had just happened sometime in the summer. However, when I picked up a mooncake box and saw the expiry date, I suddenly realized that the reason I was seeing the mooncakes again, was because a full year had already gone by since we last shopped together.
Image: a Cantonese mooncake (left) & a Suzhou-style mooncake (right), with a cup of dry chrysanthemum-osmanthus tea served in a gaiwan.
After having spent months indoors without leaving the Suburban neighbourhood during the pandemic lock-down, I feel like the grains of time have been unknowingly seeping through the spaces between the grasp of a hand.
Like the recurring cycles of the Moon’s phases, I have managed to locate my position in time not from a calendar, but rather through the return of the mooncakes, although this year, I was not feeling the sadness because I ate the last piece of mooncake as the festival passed.
- By Eric Chengyang (墨月无觞) of Dawat Yan Project, on Oct. 12, 2021 (@11:25pm)
To be continued in the form of a visual poetry as the Moon moves. Thank you for reading part #1 and visit the Dawat Yan.
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Notes & Citations
1. To learn more about the diverse styles of the kandura / thawb / dishdasha, please refer to the following article. Img #01 shows a model with a tarboosh hanging from the neck, and img #03 shows what an Omani tarboosh looks like.
Gulf: What differentiates the Dishdasha from the Kandora?
3. A fun fact: due to the different styles of mooncakes (as shown above), Chinese people from different regions tend to eat the mooncakes in distinctive ways:
Northern-Central Chinese tend to eat the mooncake in 1-2 single bites, because their variant of mooncakes has a flaky crust.
Southern Chinese such as Cantonese, like to cut up the mooncake with a knife, and either eat or share the smaller pieces over tea.
As someone from a Cantonese background, I personally think that mooncakes also go well with coffee.
