Fall colors are showing up in China. While fall will eventually bring beautiful yellow, orange and brown hues, right now we are seeing mostly green on our college campuses. That’s because fall is the time for school to resume operation, which means that it’s time again for freshman orientation, which means new university students put on their green camo uniforms and learn to march: 
It’s quite a site to see several thousand students, divided into groups and counting “one, two, three, four” (in Chinese, yi er, san, si). Click this video clip to hear them: Freshman Orientation
While there are many colors along the street here in China, some of the most vibrant ones are natural, like the brilliant red of these peppers drying on a table (reminding us why our digestive systems are always a bit “different” here):
We’re also drawing near to “Zhongqiu” – the Mid-Autumn festival, for which the official calendar grants holidays on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday next week. One of my students asked how we planned to celebrate. “Well…” Surprised at my hesitation, she asked how the typical American family celebrated this holiday. “Well…”
Locals celebrate by eating mooncakes with family members, which are usually about 3″ diameter and come with a variety of fillings. Some are smooth (like the ham-filled one below) and others are embossed with fancy printing and flavored with fruit:
To satisfy the huge demand, attractive displays appear in almost every shop, adding to our fall colors. The mooncakes usually come in a gift box, but this merchant went for the Easter basket packaging approach:
In my opinion, mooncakes are kind of like fruitcakes. They are fun to give and receive during the appropriate season of year, but you can’t eat too many of them.
I don’t think I’ve ever talked to a Chinese person that actually likes to eat mooncakes… The meat, egg, and bean flavors are especially, uh, “flavorful.” I got a lotus root one the other day which wasn’t too bad.
I asked my students today, and it looks like about half of them don’t eat any mooncakes, most of them eat one or two, and one really skinny kid ate four. It’s certainly more about tradition than culinary interest.