Chinese reading challenge

I studied Chinese at university as a minor, lived and worked in China for six years and have a Chinese husband. So, I should be pretty fluent in Chinese, right? Sadly 还差很多 (= I'm still far from it). Chinese is, next to Japanese, one of my strongest target languages but in the last six years, I haven't really done anything to both maintain and improve my Chinese level. I only took two years of Chinese classes, the first year at university and also the first year  So, in order to push myself to do something for Chinese, I signed up for this months "Hacking Chinese Reading Challenge". The goal is to focus on extensive reading. I will try to read a book for a change instead of always staring at the computer or smartphone screen.

Hacking Chinese by Olle Linge is my favourite website with tips for learning Chinese. It offers methods, ideas and links to resources not only for beginners and intermediate students but also for advanced students.

On the picture you can see mooncakes (月饼 yuè bĭng), which are eaten during the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on the 15th of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, so this year it falls on the 4th of October. The egg yolk in the middle of the cake represents the full moon. To learn more about the various types of mooncakes checkout the Wikipedia article. The filling is very dense, sweet and stuffing, that's why the mooncake is normally cut into tiny pieces for eating. If you want to know, how to make mooncake you can check out this video: Mini Lotus Paste Mooncakes Recipe by Huang Kitchen. Looks nice, but a lot of work...

The music

There are countless songs about the moon and the moon festival. Here are some of the most famous ones:
The moon represents my heart by Teresa Teng: 月亮代表我的心
Moonlight in the City by Mavis Hee: 城里的月光
If you learn Chinese check the lyrics out here: singchinesesongs
Wishing we last forever by Wang Fei: 但願人長久