September in China is all about the Mid-Autumn Festival, more popularly known as the Moon Festival. Falling on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, this is the second biggest public celebration after Spring Festival.

During this time, families gather to reconnect, admire the plumpest moon of the year and nibble on mooncakes, a traditional Chinese pastry. In fact, Mid-Autumn festival is to pastries what Valentine's Day is to flowers.

Bakers cash-in on the festival with orders being placed months in advance by big companies and individuals alike.

Imagine a palm-sized, round pastry– representing the moon and a family circle – embossed with artistic patterns and filled with everything from bean paste, sesame, ham and salted egg yolks, to rose powder and walnuts.

Without fail, at this time of year, Mooncakes emerge from every nook and cranny, and ornately designed boxes filled with the pastries are passed around as gifts just as freely as one might pass a bottle of water at a sporting event. Before the holiday, it's common for families to have in their home a knee-high stack of mooncake boxes, filled with all varieties and flavors of the delicacy.

However, ironically, few people actually buy mooncakes for themselves. The cakes have long become a symbol of giving, showing respect, gaining face and building "special" relationships. Almost all companies give staff a complimentary box of the pastries. As with all gifts, eventually this can get taken to an absurd degree and, at festival time last year, newspapers reported on two extreme cases of mooncake gifting. A box of mooncakes containing a gold Buddha figurine worth $22,500 and another box that included the key to a new apartment worth $38,750 were extreme examples of ostentatious presentation. The packaging and this type of "unique mooncake accessory" prompted authorities to enforce strict regulations on mooncake packaging, and now all items that are not actual mooncakes are banned from gift packs that are labeled as mooncakes.

While the cakes are a gift that must be given, apart from a sample bite and an obligatory serving to family and friends, many people do not actually enjoy eating them, as can be seen by the amount of leftover cakes in the days following the festival. Women often complain they contain too many calories (as they are traditionally baked with lard) and with Western flavors creeping into the market, like chocolate and ice cream mooncakes from Haagen Dazs and petite green tea varieties from Starbucks, the legend of mooncakes is coining on a new legion of young fans in search of something "different."

So what was once a tasty humble treat, wrapped in modest brown packaging and eaten with immediate family members, is now a process of ornately packaged gift-giving that can put a dent in even the most padded of wallets. Still, when all is said and done, and the beams of the Autumn moon shine down over China, you will feel left out if the occasion is not accompanied by your friends and a spread of glistening mooncakes. If the taste doesn't capture you, the packaging will. CA