Where Is That Confounded Moon...?

It is the evening of October 6th, 2006. In the Chinese world, according to the Lunar Calendar, it is the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Lantern Festival, Moon Festival, or Mooncake Festival. Since I am fortunate enough to be blessed with a variety of wonderful Chinese friends in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Macau, and elsewhere (though I'm not currently acquainted with any in China or Taiwan...go figure...), I've been learning a lot about this colorful event. Check out these posts by Robin, Happysurfer, Pink Panther, and FH2o for more information about its history and customs.



Whoever thought that overthrowing the Mongol hordes would lead to such an interesting festival? If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times: those amazing Chinese!

I'm sure everyone everywhere there is a substantial Chinese population is having a wonderful time this evening getting together with family and/or friends, feasting, drinking, eating mooncakes, and enjoying the beautiful lanterns hung out on this enchanted evening. Here in Japan, however...we are praying we won't get either washed or blown away.



You see, right now there are two (as in 1 + 1) large typhoons off our coast, and they are actually converging. I've never seen anything like it before. It's bloody scary! The weather people assure us there's no chance of either of those big, ugly, spinning things hitting us directly, but all the wind and rain being kicked up and sent our way by their combined force might as well be a third typhoon all its own. Today we have already gotten more than 25% of the normal rainfall for an entire year, and it's still coming down. The wind is howling like some insane Demon Chorus of Azathoth (never mind...). It's not as bad as it was a few hours ago; the windows and doors were bulging inward so far I thought for sure one of them would shatter, but they didn't. Now it's only strong enough to make the house shake...and keep us awake all night. Needless to say, there are no lanterns, and definitely no moon to be seen.

We had to deal with this weather all day. Getting to and from ye olde academy was an exercise in bravery, and a lot of students wound up getting stranded by shut-down trains and sealed-off bridges. It was a strange day at the school today, to be sure.

Tomorrow might be even stranger. It's going to be another of our music club's Saturday Afternoon Concerts at the academy. Those are usually a lot of fun, but today's dress rehearsal got wiped out by the typhoon-induced Autumn storm. I only hope it doesn't wind up a mass of confusion tomorrow...

On a totally unrelated note (G# I think), many of you may have noticed that I've been making a lot of poems, tanka, limericks, sonnets, etc. out of word verification codes. Not so long ago, on Pa've's Peculiar Pabulum, Dewkid suggested we make sentences out of our word verification codes. Since my poetry muse was feeling itchy for some reason one day, I cranked out a tanka based on my code at the time. That got me started, and I've been going crazy with it (and probably driving other people crazy at the same time) ever since. No, it hasn't been easy; some verses just drop out of my brain like seagull graffiti, but others take a fair amount of time and thought. I've given myself some pretty nasty headaches doing it, to be sure. However, I've also noticed that, lately, I've been far more mentally awake and alert than I've been in ages. I've also been more motivated, better able to concentrate, and less forgetful, which means I've been getting more things done at work and probably doing a better job of it. It's true that the brain needs exercise just like the body, and I guess mine was in desperate need of losing some cobwebs. Besides, if I can't get rid of this extra few centimeters of padding I picked up in Australia, at least I can do something for my mind.

Whatever.

Happy Moon Festival, everyone!