A Traditional Seasonal Event Of Autumn, OTSUKIMI Is Coming Soon!

Coming September 15th is a day of full moon and people have a traditional "Otsukimi" night in Japan. Since old times, it has been said that the moon in middle autumn is the most beautiful moon of the year, fall is also the most important harvest season, thus people combine them and it became one of the major seasonal event called "Otsukimi (Moon Viewing)" or "Fifteenth Night (of the old Japanese lunar calendar)".

On "Otsukimi" Day, people would display round rice-cakes and Japanese Miscanthus sinensis grass (Susuki) as offerings for the moon as in the lower right hand side photo. The rice cakes are usually plain without any flavor and piled like a pyramid. It is called "Otsukimi Dango". The round shape of them represents the "full-moon". 

However this event is actually becoming more miner as a seasonal event as people started to enjoy Halloween more. Well, piled candies may be better than piled plain rice-cakes, especially for kids, but I hope this traditional nice event to enjoy the beauty of the moon will continue!