Moon Cake Part II

[FPS (first person shooter) beta testing mode]

Went to market early today (woke up at 6.30am, go at 6.45am). Went with parents and younger sister. After the routine breakfast (Loh Mee Banzai!!!), saw an auntie selling moon cakes.

Mum ask the auntie how much was she selling the moon cakes. Since the moon cake is not professionally and prettily packed, just choose what you want and she will put the moon cake into a cheap cheap plastic bag, expect the price to be about RM7-8 with eggs.

Surprised! Its no where near it. The traditional red bean paste and lotus paste cost ONLY RM2.50 per cake! With yolk, the price goes up to RM4 per cakes. Got the shock of my life there. RM4! Then what the hell are the people at KLT or Queensbay Mall selling? Gold and diamond crusted packaging on the moon cakes? Or the paste itself is prepared from some kind of rare food on the earth? Really don't want to say this at the blog, but WTF is the world moving towards? Packaging and money is more important than people's happiness to eat moon cakes? But who will they care? Smart way to make money, which is selling less amount for more premium product, is the current trend, and will be the way of life for the future. Good for investor. Bad for normal 人民. Sounds more and more like communist, am I not?

Bought RM30 worth of moon cakes from that auntie...Sounds a little but it is a lot...Hope they don't taste bad...

Don't think too much...This is life. And my immature mind. But who cares. This is my space to rant. Now...Where is my moon cake...And feed the fish...

Moon cakes

It is almost "moon cake festival". The time of the year where young people (kids only though) play with cute cartoon lanterns and eat some moon cakes, and probably with pameloes if you can find them.

Now that brings me to my point. Moon cakes. Who does not love them? In addition, it is part of Chinese cultural delicacies. Well maybe some of you do not like moon cakes for whatsoever reason. But most of us do anyway. With or without egg yolks. With whatever stuff inside of the moon cakes. Red bean paste, lotus paste and other "abdominal filler" within the moon cakes, together with the thick yummy crust of the moon cakes...The combination (or probably the crust-only moon cakes) provide the addictive sweet taste that will make you want for more. It makes the taste bud goes all euphoric (at least for me). And what a emesis-inducing description that is...From me who is bad at describing things.

Anyway, the things about moon cakes is price. Once upon a time, 1 moon cake cost only about RM5 without yolk. RM7 with 1 yolk. RM5! And now? With all the beautiful packaging and aggressive marketing, the cost of moon cakes sky rocketed to RM10+ in recent years. Today, I went to Queensbay Mall, and the price of the moon cakes shocked me! RM 20 (tax not yet included) for a NORMAL moon cakes. With no yolk. But I must admit, the size and the packaging of the moon cakes seems (a little bit) bigger and pretty than the standard not so pretty moon cakes. And the funny thing is, people are still willing pay that exorbitant fees for that silly piece of moon cakes. With a nice packaging of course. And what a brilliant idea anyway. And these type of moon cakes typically flood all the market place, including Carefour, which I depends my grocery from. As a result, unless I got a know-how and know-where and a car, I won't be able to get a moon cake that can satisfy both my stomach and consciousness.

Extrapolate that to other things in real life: Every "premium" products are always much costlier than they supposed to be. With better looks and perhaps better quality. Maybe not all are costlier than they are supposed to be. PSP and PS3 are sold at a loss from Sony. Which is great, supposingly. This is a fact of life. But this will also inflate the price of other competitors, knowing that with an inferior product, they could sell the product at near premium price with a cuter or better packaging and aggressive promotion. But then again, what can we do, you might ask. Nothing. Really. Nothing. No one want to go back to the way of communism or socialism where the trade are all heavily controlled. And it is counter productive and counter development, which I do not think any people will want it. Also bear in mind that price that goes up will never go down again. Never.

For now, I am still looking for a "easily-accesible-yet cheap-enough-for-my-wallet" moon cake to fill my lust for moon cakes...