Moon Festival on Lover’s Slope

Maybe Moon Festival is like America’s Thanksgiving in that it is the second most important family holiday. So GaoYan was kind of feeling down because she was not with her family.
One of our friends called and announced “We are hunting moon cakes on the lover’s slope.” Hunting moon cakes? I wonder if that is anything like hunting Easter eggs? The lover’s slope is the grassy hillside notorious among the students for the place to take your girlfriend. It was already dark, but the full moon provided a good amount of light. The adults had hidden the moon cakes around the lover’s slope and the kids were running around with flash lights trying to find them. Several kids had these paper lanterns for hunting moon cakes and the first thing that came to my mind was Halloween jack-o-lanterns. The kids would run and trip down the hillside crushing and tearing the paper lanterns. They had a great time. Caleb got all sweaty with his hair full of grass. Moon cakes are like three Fig Newtons pressed together or lots of people say they are like Christmas fruit cakes. Every Moon Festival I wonder, “How did we end up with so many moon cakes.” You try to give them away which backfires, because the person you gave them to brings back twice as many in return. We did manage to lose two moon cakes during the night hunting, a step in the right direction. Maybe a boyfriend girlfriend couple will find them on Valentine’s Day for a snack.
Finally we lit a kongming deng, a miniature hot air balloon. I wouldn’t expect the kongming deng to ever become a Fourth of July tradition in the States because of the fire hazard. We started the paper lantern burning at the bottom of the lover’s slope which was a big mistake. Each time we thought the lantern was ready to fly the wind would blow it back down on the lover’s slope sending lovers scattering and us chasing after it. I heard several students yelling out Joshua and laughing, but I couldn’t see who they were. After four more tries, the flaming lantern had finally reached the top of the slope with nowhere to go but up. We all oooed and awed as the flaming flying paper lantern rose and the wind blew it across the full moon.