Zhōngqiū Jié, mooncakes and riddle lanterns
This is where the festival is generally traced to, and the version most of the world has met: families out under the fullest moon of the year, mooncakes cut into wedges small enough that everyone at the table gets one, and paper lanterns on the water. Lantern riddles are the old part nobody expects — a riddle written on the side of a lantern and a small prize for the child who solves it. The last picture in this set is a wall of them.
The story is Chang’e, the Moon Lady, who swallowed an elixir of immortality to keep it from the wrong hands and rose until she reached the moon, where the jade rabbit keeps her company pounding herbs in a bowl. Children are told to look for the rabbit in the shadows on a full moon, and it is the rare instruction they can walk outside and follow.
