A Customer is buying the "Snowy image" moon cake[Photo/ChinaTibetNews]

With the incoming Mid-Autumn Festival on September 12, moon cakes become more popular in people's shopping lists in Tibet. Among a variety of choices for moon cakes, a brand named "snowy image" has specially attracted people's attention for its unique Tibetan flavors and styles.

"Snowy image" moon cake has a strong ethnic characteristic. First its packing adopts the color of yellow and red, typical colors appearing in Buddhism and the Eight Auspicious Symbols are inscribed on the front of the box. New Tibetan flavors have been added to moon cakes, including the tastes of the snow lotus flower, caterpillar fungus juice, Rhodiola, barley and yak meat.

According to the retailer of “Snowy image” moon cake, head shop of “Budweiser Carnival moon cake”, this new brand of moon cake well designed its ethnical characteristics by inviting a prestigious design company in Shenzhen to do the layout work of moon cake packing. The sale performance seems encouraging by now, and it is expected to be one of the best seller brands in local markets in Tibet.

On Sept. 6, two shoppers look at a giant moon cake displayed at a department store in Shengyang inside northeastern China's Liaoning Province.[Photo/Xinhua]

Moon cake, a traditional food to eat during the Chinese Mid-autumn Festival, is popular with all Chinese people because it is a symbol of family unity.

As the name suggests, the Mid-Autumn Festival takes place in the middle of autumn. The month August was considered to be the second (or the middle) month of autumn, and the Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day (the middle) of the eighth month in the lunar calendar each year. This year, the festival will take place on Sept 12.

There are many different beliefs regarding the origin of the moon cake. One theory suggests that moon cakes were originally used as vessels to pass secret messages, where people sneaked slips of paper in the filling of the pastry. Others believe that people paid respect to the lady that lived on the moon – Chang'e (along with her pet the jade rabbit) – by presenting exquisitely prepared desserts. Either way, the tradition was passed on, and the pastry has become the moon cakes we eat today.

The status of the moon cake during the Mid-Autumn Festival is equivalent to that of roasted turkey on Christmas Eve or chocolates on Valentine's Day; it's just indispensable.

Moon cakes are round pastries commonly filled with lotus paste and seeds, red bean paste, ham or salted duck's egg yolk. The surface of the cakes are often patterned with clouds, the moon and rabbits, each symbolic and significant for the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The cakes are round, a shape that symbolizes reunions for the Chinese. Exchange of gifts among families and friends during the festival is one of the most amicable customs in China. Strolling under the gentle moon light is a good choice for the hopeless romantics. Even for the couples that are miles apart, admiring the silver moon under the same sky would emotionally pull them closer at that very hour.