Renao

For Mid-Autumn Festival, the celebration of the full moon and everything round, I decided to follow the crowds and go to the cities biggest park. Normally I try to avoid the crowds, but since I knew that this would be my last MAF for a while, I decided to be like the natives. I knew that the place was going to be packed, but I had no idea how packed. Oh My Goodness!! Can we say a lot of people! I was sitting outside the gate waiting for a friend and people just kept piling in. I have no idea how they all fit (very tightly). This is what the Asians call Renao (literaly translated hot noise), but meaning lively and noisy. To the locals, this is a very positive term. They love renao. If things are not renao, then they are not exciting. But to me, things stop being fun when there is a crowd. I am not clostrophobic or afraid of people, but when you cannot see two feet in front of you and you have to constantly watch yourself from stepping on people, then there are too many people. I would not be surprised if there were 1million people at that park. And I must tell you, I did not stick around very long.
But if you are interested, inside the park there were people selling paper lanterns, plastic torches and other light up toys, incense, round fruit,... People were set up on the lawn with displays of food, burning incense to something. My friend guided me through the lawn, but I had to leave because of the smell (as I wrote about before, I can't stand incense).
In all, the park seemed like a fun place to celebrate, if you like crowds, but since the moon is viewable from much more peaceful places, I will choose to go somewhere else next time.