BY RACHAEL MA

Last month, we held a fundraising mooncake-making workshop in Hong Kong in celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Mooncakes are a rich delicacy in the Chinese culture in which a salted egg yolk is wrapped in a thick lotus seed paste to emulate the full moon.

In the Chinese culture, you will find that circle tables are more common than rectangular ones. This is because a circle table not only aids in the sharing of food and conversation, but is also a symbol for continuity of generations in that a circle is never ending.

Therefore, we celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival by reuniting with our family members for a meal and the lighting of lanterns.

To mark the occasion, on 8 September, Viva Hong Kong hosted a total of ten pairs of people of all ages to make bunny mooncakes. We asked participants to pay to take part in the workshop, with the money raised going towards Viva’s global work with vulnerable children.

Both children and adults enjoyed the hands on process of measuring out the pastry, moulding it, wrapping the egg yoke paste and some got more creative and created shapes of different animals and even monsters. We loved watching parents taking time to do something creative and fun with their children. These are memorable moments that mean a lot to families.

After a short while, the mooncakes came out of the oven and the kids were eager to try their handmade creations. Some of the mooncakes didn’t even make it to the box for them to take home as they couldn’t wait to devour a couple before they went home!

All in all, we were all filled with, not only from richness of egg yolk and pastry, but also the love between family and friends.