Bai Jia Asian Mart owner Cindy Wong holding a traditional mooncake. Photo / Eva de Jong
Bai Jia Asian Mart owner Cindy Wong holding a traditional mooncake. Photo / Eva de Jong
A Whanganui store owner says mooncakes are becoming “more and more popular” amongst first-timers for the Mid-Autumn Festival or Moon Festival.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is a harvest festival celebrated in East Asian communities each year on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month - this year on September 17.
Bai Jia Asian Mart owner Cindy Wong, who has been in her Victoria Ave store for five years, said she noticed mooncakes were becoming “more and more popular” with people coming in and asking for them specifically.
“I think more people know about our culture through TV and Chinese, Korean or Japanese dramas - also by watching on Tiktok.
“Besides Chinese people, there are more and more local people that know about the mooncake festival.”
Mooncakes are a rich pastry filled with flavour combinations such as mixed nuts or lotus seed paste and often contain a duck egg yolk or double yolk filling.
Snow skin or snowy mooncakes are more sweet-tasting than a traditional mooncake. Photo / Cindy Wong
She said more Whanganui people visiting her store who were curious to have their first try of a mooncake.
“For example, some old Kiwis they came in and asked: ‘What is a mooncake’ ... and people passing by it was their first time coming in.
“People were interested to know what a mooncake is.”
Wong sold an estimated 120 mooncakes in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Wong also makes snow skin mooncakes every year, a sweeter version of traditional mooncakes made from glutinous rice and containing mung bean paste or other fillings.
Jasmine and Joyce Wong celebrating the 2024 Mid-Autumn (Moon) Festival. Photo / Cindy Wong
She said snowy mooncakes were popular with young people and tasted more like Japanese mochi.
“Every year I will take my girls to make the snowy mooncakes, and we make the pastry ourselves and use edible colour.
“We fill it with lotus seed paste or green bean paste.”
She expected the interest in mooncakes to continue despite the festival’s completion.
“After the festival, there are still people that will come in and ask for mooncakes, even during Christmas.
“You can eat them any time but it is especially for the moon festival, and even now most people will only eat it then.”
Mooncakes can be expensive and Wong said that could sometimes hold people back from purchasing them.
“Since Covid people struggle to survive and they don’t have much money to spend on mooncakes because the mooncake costs a lot.”
Wong typically celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival by hanging lanterns in the garden, making mooncakes with her daughters and sharing a beautifully prepared meal with family.
“Normally we will celebrate at home and I will prepare a traditional meal because it’s a family gathering.”
Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023.
