The ghost of Mooncake festivals past

We passed by the site of my old rumah panjang on the way to dinner today, and it brought back a lot of memories. FYI, all the rumah panjang in Pudu Ulu were demolished around 7 years ago, and that was where I grew up. Since there's a bunch of kids playing with candles and lanterns outside my window right now, I'll reminisce about past Mooncake Festivals.

Usually, after school, we'd be very excited because Mooncake festival was still a big thing for us kids, kinda like CNY and the Harvest festival. I remember whiling away the hours near the drain opposite my house, playing with the tadpoles and dragonflies. Of course, that was before the construction of what is now Taman Kobena took place. After they built the flats there, the drain water, which was clearer than my tap water now, was forever changed to muddy yellow.

Once the sun set, the neighbourhood kids would be out in full force, equipped with our goldfish lanterns (for girls) and rocket lanterns (for the boys), with an extra packet of candles thrown in for good measure. My mother used to buy both Japanese paper lanterns and the wire-rimmed multi-coloured lanterns, but when it became evident that we only used the Japanese lanterns for fuel, Mom stopped buying them altogether. Anyway, armed with our arsenal of weapons, we'd then go about terrorising the slow moving bugs and slugs by dripping wax on them. It's amazing how early I developed my sadistic streak. Since kids have unstable motor skills, we'd also end up burning most of our lanterns by 10 pm. That was also when we subjected the roadside grass to torture as well, burning them when we dropped our flaming lanterns in panic. Somehow, I don't burn as many lanterns now as I did back then. ;)

My neighbour's (no. 3) mother was into Taoism, so she did the whole prayer thing during the Mooncake Festival, while we kids amused ourselves by lighting candles on the rims of the flower pots, or by the above-mentioned terrorising. We also got into a lot of trouble for our choice of candle holders, cos the plants sometimes died, but back then we still had skin made of cowhide, so no waving (or using) of rotans would scare us into behaving. Besides, they looked pretty. Our most ambitious project was writing 'love' in mandarin that took up the entire width of the road. It was crushed when my neighbour (no. 8) came home from work, driving his huge-ass truck. The wax stayed on for about 1 week though, and many a biker/motorcyclist slipped on that patch of multi-coloured wax.

To all those poeple who broke their limbs from that patch of wax, please don't look me up now, I'm sorry for what I did back then. Honest.

Anyway, there was a tree next to my neighbour's (no.11) house and we used to climb that when my granma was busy cooking in the kitchen, and that tree shed its leaves somewhere around September, so there was plenty fuel around to start a bonfire. Obviously, now that I'm grown up and mature, I realise that starting a bonfire near rows and rows of wooden tinderboxes and a Tenaga power station isn't really a brilliant idea, and I can understand why the adults came running towards us with pitchforks when they saw what we were doing. But back then, starting my first fire was wonderful. At first I didn't know whether the leaves would actually burn, and it took a long time for us greenhorns to keep the fire going steady, but pretty soon the sparks caught and the embers erupted into a full blown bonfire almost as tall as I was.

That's also when we all got into trouble (canemarks up to the thighs), but it was after we managed perform an Indian dance, complete with hooting, around the fire, and I still think it was worth it.

We used to eat the black horn-like thingies whose name I forgot, but they had to be cracked open with a hammer. I didn't really like the taste of the horn thingy, it was pretty dry and bland. It's main attraction lay in the fact that it was only on the 8th lunar month that my mom actually let me play with a real hammer without going ballistics over a smashed Matchbox car.

My favourite food was the yam that's eaten with salt. I dunno why, but I like it better than any other food. Mooncakes weren't really my idea of dessert, besides, my brother likes em more than I do, so I might as well let him enjoy those. I prefered the plate-sized mooncake about half an inch thick, made of white flour-like substance, and it was hard and crunchy. It also had a picture of a lady on the top in cheapo colouring. I guess that was what made it appealing to me. Another thing I remember was the whitish candy that came in long strips. Once you suck the outer layer of sugar off, what's left is basically a piece of dried gourd. God I hated that. :p

After we were tired out from all the running around and shouting and screaming, we'd be sitting by our parents' rattan chairs eating peanuts and dozing off. Before packing us off to bed, my mom would bring out the Cat's Eye sparklers. Up to now I still like to look at sparklers while they're still burning, and then look elsewhere and see the stars. This only works if you have the sparklers with a metal handle, not the lousy paper ones that're so everywhere now. Somehow, there'll always be some forgotten lanterns still hanging around, left to burn till the candle goes out. Sometimes it rains at night and we find the skeleton of the lantern next morning, hanging on the fugui plant.

Now, I don't play with candles anymore, nor do I like goldfish lanterns, but I light small Japanese paper lanterns, because they look pretty when all the lights are switched off. I don't remember the last time I spoke to my neighbour, and I don't know any of the kids. There's also nothing left of my old house, and the tree is dead. Instead, 20-storey blocks of concrete stand in its place, but the old Tenaga power station still stands.