Mooncake Sonnet

Last week in my Brit lit class, we studied Shakespeare. We discussed Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy, the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet, and Sonnet 18, the famous "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" poem. Despite the archaic English words that they've never studied or used, my students did well discussing Shakespeare and I felt academic and scholarly lecturing about Shakespeare and tossing out famous lines like "Deny thy father and refuse thy name!" and "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all."

While Katie and I were preparing for the class, we discussed the idea of having the students attempt to write a sonnet as their homework. To help the students not be so overwhelmed at the idea, Katie had the great idea of us writing our own sonnet, dedicated to Mid-Autumn Festival which is this Monday. Mid-Autumn Festival is a Chinese holiday where families get together, eat a big meal, and (supposedly) gaze up at the full moon while eating mooncakes. Mooncakes are fig-newton-esque "cakes" which can have a variety of fillings inside--fruit jelly, eggs, meat, red bean paste, nuts. After years in China, I've come to the conclusion that mooncakes, while a nice idea, are similar to fruitcake at Christmas time. I just don't like mooncakes and although Chinese people buy them in bulk for the holiday, a lot of them don't really like them all that much either. So anyways, in honor of mooncakes and to give our students a somewhat ridiculous example, here is "Mid-Autumn Sonnet."

Shall I compare thee to a round mooncake?

Thou art just as longed for and desired in fall.

I loathe the taste, yet I eat them for your sake.

My love is as big as the moon yet the cake be small.

Sometimes mooncakes are sweet and taste of strawberry,

This flavor so right, like us, arranged by fate.

At times quarrels make our sweet love contrary,

Bringing to mind cakes of meat, egg and date.

Each year we sit and gaze at the moon so round.

Telling the story of Chang’e* on this day,

We hope that by her lover she can be found,

But if mooncakes abound they’ll be thrown away.

And so my dear if we must ever needs part,

Know that always the moon(cake) stands for my heart.**

*Chang’e is the beautiful women in the mid-autumn myth. She takes her husband's medicine which is supposed to let him live forever. But when she does, she flies to the moon and her lover is only able to see her when the moon is full at the Mid-autumn day.

**Reference to well-known Chinese song “Yue Liang Daibiao Wo de Xin (The Moon Stands for my Heart)”

Although we took a bit of poetic license with the iambic pentameter, the rhyme pattern does match that of English Sonnets which is (literary trivia questions of the day) ababcdcdefefgg. If my students come up with any good sonnets, I'll try to post them.

So far, I've received 15 mooncakes-- 4 Giant sized, 9 medium, and 2 small. I have no idea what to do with them. Hopefully I can find a way to pass them on to people who like them more than I do.