Mooncake midnight 🥮

Or moon pies, as @therealbrandonwilson like to put it.

It’s Mid Autumn next week. And mooncakes are on the menu.
Did my annual pilgrimage to the tiny, old school shop tucked away in Chinatown today.

I was super busy, and didn’t think I could make the time.
But I felt uneasy all week knowing that, so I went.

I need this.
I needed this.

This annual shot of nostalgia and reminiscence.
And I’m so glad I made the time.

Love the well-worn, stacks of wooden trays they have for holding the mooncakes.
Love the crispy sound of the baking paper they use for wrapping the delicate pastry.
Love how families make this a yearly tradition to visit the shop.
Love looking through the glass display full of glazed mooncakes.
Love the aroma of fresh pastry, the sweet smell of lotus paste.

Love that this tiny piece of tradition still lives.

But for how long?

I’ve been buying mooncakes every year for more than a decade.
Each year, an old master retires, and therefore, the shop closes.
Each year, another old school shop gets acquired by a big conglomerate, and the mooncakes get made by cold, factory machines, and the taste, gone.
Each time I hear that, I wince, my heart breaks a little.

There will be no more of such shops by the time I am old and need them to remember my life from.
Its midnight is coming.
That future makes me sad.

But today, I try not to dwell on it.
Today, I rejoice in my heritage.
This precious, disappearing piece of heritage.

May it persist, despite it all.