“Full circle stands for unity,” our earliest ancestors stated while they stood on the desolate ancient land of China, as the moon rose from the deepest darkness and snailed its way up to the very midst of the night sky, shining more brightly than ever as it presented itself as a whole in the mid-fall cloudless sky.

“Unity stands for bringing the scattered to one.” This idea of reunion, an extension of the Chinese primary moral ethics of treasuring family value, has been running through our blood since the beginning of our nation’s 5000-year history.

Every member of this nation, no matter if they have roved to some corner of the world, should travel back to reunite with their families on this very day when full moon is most clearly seen at midnight—The 15th of September on Chinese calendar.

The family would sit outdoors where mooncakes, in the shape of the full moon, would be served with tea in moderate weather and the teasing breeze of autumn. Mooncakes would be sliced into the exact number of pieces as the number of members in the family. Everyone gets a piece of cake, no more, no less.

This is one of the traditions we have been taught along with our mother tongue.

Everyone knows this by heart, but just like all other quaint conventional practices fading through time, it never finds its way to bond with people’s daily life in the modern society.

I am, as a distant observer, touched by the idea, but it never directly or fiercely gives me nostalgia. At least not until I embarked on my journey as one of those rovers out in the foreign land.

Born in this country that has a profound cultural appreciation of unity out of all else in society, I, like every other Chinese child, have been interlocked with the solitude of various social communities my whole life. And family, among all these, stands out the most.

It has never been a form of ardor, pounding on my heart with intense emotions like the kind of love in a romantic sense, but it has its own way of subtly encircling me with the warmth of caring, assuring me that someone out there, no matter where I go, is always watching over me.

18 years having been nestled peacefully in this cradle of kinship, this particular sort of moral support has been part of my life for too long. I cannot feel the significance its influence on me until I am stripped of it.

I am surrounded by friends. I am welcomed and embraced by this society. I haven’t encountered much trouble, and I am grateful for having the opportunity to lead a part of my life here.

But on this particular night, looking straight up to the sky, I see the full moon glowing at me as if she is disappointed, as if I just failed to keep the promise I’ve never found difficult keeping for 18 years.

I am not with my family. The rover did not find her way home. The mooncake is short of a piece.

The full moon is not full.

“Now I understand this proverb: ‘One misses his kinsfolk ten times more when a festival comes’.” One of my Chinese friends, who is also studying abroad an ocean away from home, said that to me the night before mid-autumn festival.

I couldn't agree more. With the constant heavy workload in college, I could barely find time to slow down my pace and think about my family thousands of miles away. I became numb, unattached to feelings of nostalgia, until the festival came and I realized I don't have a piece of mooncake in my hands.

Having yet another busy weekday in college, it is unrealistic for me to hop on a plane and head back home. But I am glad that this feeling is provoked in this exotic land, before I forget completely about where my roots are.

As the old Chinese poet writes, “May god bless us with longevity, and, though far apart, we all share the same full moon.”

但愿人长久，千里共婵娟。