A: What am I going to do? It’s Mid-Autumn Festival, and I’ve been so busy I forgot to prepare anything for the BBQ!
B: Who says you need to have a BBQ on Mid-Autumn Festival? That was just a marketing ploy dreamt up by a BBQ sauce producer 30 years ago. Moon viewing, eating moon cakes and pomelos are the traditional ways of celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival.
A: Yeah, I’ve always wondered why loads of people set off rockets on Mid-Autumn Festival. If the Jade Hare or Chang-e really did live on the moon, they would long ago have hopped off in fright.
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B: Well, if you think about it, with the cool autumn breeze and the full moon in the sky, Mid-Autumn Festival should have more of a literary feeling, and we should do something more cultural to celebrate it.
A: You mean like composing poetry? I don’t think I’m quite up to that, but I do know there’s an exhibition in an art gallery nearby. Fancy taking a look?
B: Now that is a splendid idea.
A: 怎麼辦,中秋節到了,我忙到忘記準備烤肉材料了!
B: 誰說中秋節一定要烤肉的?這也不過是三十年前烤肉醬廠商搞出來的名堂。賞月、吃月餅和柚子,才是過中秋真正的傳統吧!
A: 對呀,我也搞不懂為什麼中秋節一大堆人都在放沖天炮。如果月亮上有月兔和嫦娥,也早就被嚇跑了吧!
B: 其實想想看,秋高氣爽、明月皎潔,中秋節應該是很有氣質的節日。過中秋我們應該要做點有氣質的事才對。
A: 吟詩作對嗎?這我沒辦法。不過附近的藝廊有個展覽,我們去看看怎麼樣?
B: 你這真是冰雪聰明的好主意 !
(Translated by Paul Cooper, Taipei Times / 台北時報林俐凱)
Audio recordings for Speak Up! dialogues will be suspended until further notice due to the pandemic.
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