The reason for the Mid-Autumn Festival is that in the Northern Song Dynasty, the royal family liked to eat palace cakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival, which were called "small cakes" and "moon cakes" by the people. Su Dongpo once wrote: "Small cakes are like chewing the moon, crisp and pleasant." There is also a word "moon cake" in Liang Lumeng written by Wu in the Southern Song Dynasty. However, in the West Lake Travel Agency in the Ming Dynasty, the description of the whole family enjoying the moon and eating moon cakes was recorded: "August 15th is the Mid-Autumn Festival, and people get together with moon cakes as their legacy". In the Qing Dynasty, there were more and more records about moon cakes, and the production projects about moon cakes became more and more elaborate.
On the Mid-Autumn Festival in China, people eat moon cakes to show "reunion". Moon cakes, also known as Hu cakes, Palace cakes, Moon dumplings, Harvest cakes, Reunion cakes, etc. It is an offering to worship the moon god in ancient Mid-Autumn Festival. According to legend, in ancient China, the emperor would hold moon cakes to worship the moon god during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
In the folk, every Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15th, there is also the custom of Yue Bai or offering sacrifices to the moon. The famous proverb "The moon is full on August 15th, and the Mid-Autumn moon cake is sweet and fragrant" tells the custom of urban and rural people to eat moon cakes on Mid-Autumn night. Moon cakes were originally used to worship the moon god. Later, people gradually regarded Mid-Autumn Festival as a beautiful symbol of family reunion.
In ancient times, Mid-Autumn Festival was just another name for moon cakes, which included the people's longing for family reunion on Mid-Autumn Festival or Mid-Autumn Festival night, as well as the wanderers' deep yearning for their relatives in their hometown and their eager expectation for an early reunion.