Marcus Garvey said, “a people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”(Garvey). Sometimes, I think I am the tree far away from my roots. 

Before 2018, I was with my whole family every Mid-Autumn Day where we never missed any chance to see my grandparents and celebrate together. However, it became another story after my parents and I came to the United States in 2018. As you all know, I’m a Chinese girl, a nationality with lots of different traditions and special cultures that I can not share all within 3 days, and this includes my favorite traditional festival called the Mid-Autumn festival. The Mid-Autumn festival is a representation of the family reunion that is the second biggest festival after the Lunar New Year. On this day, no matter how far away you are, everyone will go home to have dinner with their family. People eat lots of different types of mooncakes that they bought, not only because of the full moon but also because it is representative of family members sitting around a round table to celebrate this reunion festival.

On October 1st, the Mid-Autumn Day in 2020, after two years in New York, my father could make lots of mooncakes without any hesitation (we always buy mooncakes in China), and we even send our mooncakes to our friends. Before I came here, I never thought of one day that we were going to make mooncakes ourselves. In the morning, mooncakes were ready for us to eat, and my smile was ready to show, but when I just noticed that I still have classes at 1:50, I felt totally awful that it destroyed my holiday. Normally, there’s always a three-day holiday in China to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, and it was always my favorite thing during our long school year. However, I lost my favorite thing after I came to New York because I still needed to go to school on that day.

I complained to my mother, “It's so bad that I have classes on Mid-Autumn Day!” 

She responded to me, “Come on, everything’s gonna be okay.” I did not feel better, but I have nothing to do with it. 

Maybe my mother saw my upset, she told me, “We have a big crab at lunch! Your favorite, excited?” Although I knew she was comforting me, I still felt good when someone was caring about my feelings.

“Really? I just don’t know that! What a surprise.” Therefore, that crab solved my problem easily, at least right now.

We had a delicious and rich lunch, which meant we needed lots of time to finish it. Unfortunately, I did not finish before the class started. When I sat in front of my computer and tried to finish my lunch, I couldn't help thinking that my Mid-Autumn Festival was like this. Staying on the remote classes with unfinished lunch? I would never accept this in the past, and I started my reminiscence that we went out to visit some light shows and had a big dinner with all family members in the past years.

After I submitted my last work of the day, I decided to watch the Mid-Autumn Gala with my family. When we watched it, my mother cried, so I asked her, “What’s wrong? It’s the holiday, don’t cry.” 

After I said this, she cried harder like a child, “Just homesick.” 

“Did you just call my grandparent in the morning?” I comfort her. 

“Yes, but you know, it’s different. I just saw the family at the Gala having dinner together, but I can’t go back.” 

At that moment, I had nothing to say to her because I understood that she was right, so I hugged her and said, “I want to go back as well.” Although it seemed that I’m comforting her, I knew I wasn’t because I’m also speaking to myself. That’s my only wish for the moon this year. I looked at the full moon through the window and thought that maybe my family and friends in China are watching the same moon at night.

It’s midnight when we finished the Gala, and when I lay down on my bed, I just realized today is a special day for me. Yes, Mid-Autumn is important to me, but why is it so important that I felt sad and disappointed without a good celebration of it? I tried to answer this by myself: maybe because I lost it that people always cherish what had been lost; maybe because this is not my normalcy and I cannot deal with it yet; maybe because I don’t feel good when the environment pushes me to make some changes… I did not know what exactly the answer was, but what I know is something changed in me.

I went out of my room to ask my mother about this, but when I saw the mooncakes my father made lie on the table, I understood that my answer was in those mooncakes. If the mooncakes could be made by a person who never made them before, why can’t I change myself into a person with both cultures? The holiday disappeared, but the mooncakes did not. Similarly, I’m not in China, but the moon is still full and the festival is still in our hearts. Making mooncakes by ourselves might be a hard task, but the idea of the reunion at this special festival was more important than hardships. 

I’m not the tree without roots because they are only a part of me, a part that is deep inside but so important that I cannot live without them.