Dear Gossips,

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! Happy Harvest Moon! Today is one of the most important days on the lunar calendar, one of the major holidays in Chinese culture. Some of us call it Chinese Thanksgiving. This is the time of year when we pass around moon cakes. Moon cakes are traditionally filled with red bean or lotus seed paste and an egg yolk inside. I love the look of them – they’re SO cute: 

The taste, though, is not my favourite. But these days they’re making moon cakes with all kinds of other fillings which I’m conflicted about because on the one hand, they do taste better but on other hand, the flavours are more western and I worry that that dilutes the tradition. Moon cake boxes are also getting more and more elaborate. Like Paris fashion houses now produce their own moon cake gift sets – you can check them out here. Some of these made me laugh because, well, I’m trying to imagine what an elder would say if they were gifted with the Saint Laurent moon cake box which is black, not typically known as the Chinese colour of celebration. White, by the way, isn’t either. Chinese people wear white to funerals. 

POOF. BLOWWWW. That’s me waving away all this bad luck talk on such a lucky day. Let’s turn it around and celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival with some great celebrity news …

BOWEN YANG!

Just announced as one of Saturday Night Live’s new cast members! Sarah will have more on this later. For now…

May this Harvest Moon bring health and happiness. May the yield be overflowing with love and joy and family and friendship. Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Have a great weekend!

Yours in gossip,

Lainey