Mooncake Festival 2014 Cliquish Edition

It's the Mid-Autumn Harvest Celebration time of the year again, in the Philippines more commonly referred to as the Moon Cake or August Moon Festival, where the yearly tradition is to play Pua Tiong Chiu (also referred to as the moon cake dice game). I'm not really sure where this dice game has originated, because when we lived in Singapore, the local Chinese who live there - don't seem to have heard of it. 

In Singapore, there are huge lantern floats in Clarke Quay
with the Chinese Zodiac and depicting famous stories.
August Moon 2011

In Chinatown, there's a street market with vendors selling lanterns
as well as all kinds of moon cake.
August Moon 2010

Sofia in our Singapore home walking around with her Dragon lantern.
August Moon 2010

In the Philippines, the mooncake dice game is really very popular in the Chinese and Chinese-Filipino communities.  We normally have annual family reunions based on when the lunar calendar says it's time to celebrate this (the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar). When we were younger, it was less exciting because we were playing for different sizes of Hopia. Nowadays, the one who takes charge of organizing the game collects a fee from all the players - depending on how much everyone agrees to play. Since we were just playing for fun, our buy-in was only Php150 per person.

We played in KFC in Connecticut (off-Edsa), because we just find it really convenient. They let you use the function room for a minimum food bill of Php5,000, the service is good, and parking is not a issue.

The kids were so excited to play even while the adults were still eating and chatting.

Hello Kaden!!!

Kids, practice does not make perfect in this case. Hahaha. It's all a game of luck!

These are the instructions of the game.

Basically, there are 6 levels of prizes (roughly equal in value - so the first prize would be the same value as the 32 smaller prizes and so on) and what you win is determined by the combination of the numbers in the dice when you roll. However, the first prize goes to the person with the highest winning combination, so you need to keep a record of everyone who won first prize.

Vice did the shopping for our prizes, with a lot of donations
from Tians, and only some Dove products from me.

Picture muna, bago maglaro.

And the winner of most disqualified turns kasi may tumatalsik na dice is...
Timothy Syling!!! Hahaha... as you can see, sobrang daming hecklers! 

This year must really be auspicious for a lot of us because so many of us
won the Chong Guan (first prize). Thanks for the consolation prize.
Share nalang namin si Ashi. I bet even Cha forgot she (yaya) won. Hahaha.

Congrats Viele! You managed to beat all of us with
your second win.

Frank - your peeps won this coke for you!!!

And the big winners are...

All of us with our winnings (that have not yet been eaten).

Chipsy, Why do you look like the yummy Cream Bread from Mister Donut?
#mature Dibale early birdie awardee ka naman.

And the kulelat award goes to... Tiana Yu!!!
Though we really appreciate all your yummy donations :)

There you have it... hope this festival brings us all a great harvest! just saying.