CHASING FIREFLIES will be released in just a few days! July 1, 2016! Yay!!!
Pre-order on AMAZON and grab your copy!
If you've been following along with all of my posts, then you know I've been sharing fun facts about China that I incorporated into my novel. I hope they've made you excited to read CHASING FIREFLIES!
To see last week's post go HERE.
CHASING FIREFLIES is based upon some of my daughter's experiences while teaching English in China. It takes place during the Fall semester. During this time the Chinese celebrate the Mid Autumn Festival. They hang red lanterns everywhere.
(To my regular followers, sorry this has been posted before.)
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Below is one of the pictures my daughter took.
In Chinese culture, a huge full moon represents completeness. They associate the meaning of the full moon with reuniting family members together. It is one of the biggest holidays in China, even bigger than Christmas in America.
My daughter said the red lanterns hanging everywhere were beautiful.
Traditionally, Mid Autumn Festival is celebrated while eating moon cakes.
In the middle is a hard boiled egg yolk.
They don't appeal to me, but my daughter said she LOVED them. The other teachers in her group didn't care for them, so when they were offered in the cafeteria they always gave them to her. She said she had a stock pile of them in her apartment.
Another little tidbit my daughter told me is that the Chinese consider wasting food to be very rude.
While there, they were each given a tupperware container by their Chinese Native Coordinators (the Chinese teachers assigned to help them throughout their stay) to use whenever they ate at the school cafeteria. If they did not want to finish their food, they were told to put the leftovers in the tupperware container and take it back to their room. Once in their room, they were allowed to throw it away. They just had to do it in private where no one was watching. (She said she had Hello Kitty tupperware!)
I loved adding all these things into my novel and I'm so thankful for my daughter who acted as my subject matter expert! Special thanks to her for letting me share a few of her stories in my novel. It lended the air of authenticity that I needed!
Thanks for following along and sharing in all of these fun facts about China and CHASING FIREFLIES!
Enjoy reading CHASING FIREFLIES!