By chance, Xing came to "a tear in the Indian Ocean", the tropical island of Sri Lanka, and fell in love with it. Later, she quit her domestic 16 years bank job and came to Sri Lanka to start a business. She opened a dessert shop in Colombo. The name of the shop is easy to remember. It is called "Family". Regarding the origin of the name, she said: "We want every customer feels like we are a family."
Time flies like soft India ocean wind. In a blink of an eye, the dessert shop owner Xing has been in Sri Lanka for over two years. In the past two years, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, her mooncakes always sold out soon.
A mooncake is a special pastry eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival in China and parts of Asia. This festival is meant to celebrate friendship, fertility and togetherness. Xing said, "The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of our most important festivals. When we are overseas, everyone pays more attention to the meaning of Mid-Autumn Festival. All Chinese want to express their memories of their hometown through food."
Xing’s mooncakes are freshly baked, featuring low sugar, which is more in line with modern people’s health concepts. Some people who failed to buy her mooncakes last year came here early this year. This made her encouraged.
The Chinese community in Sri Lanka is not large, but the Mid-Autumn Festival, a traditional festival that carries Chinese people’s homesickness, must be celebrated. No matter where, as long as there are Chinese, there is Mid-Autumn Festival, which is August Poya.
Mid-Autumn Festival
Xing felt some Sri Lankans also know Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. "They would say this is China's' Poya Festival'. Many people who know this festival have gone to China to study, and partly because their work and business are related to China. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, they may receive mooncakes from Chinese people.”The full moon in October is Adhi-Vap Full Moon Poya for Sri Lankans. This day has special cultural significance for the people of both countries, something that the two ancient Asian countries have in common. "
In the past two years, Sri Lanka has suffered due to terrorist attacks and Covid-19. There is an old Chinese poem: People may have sorrow or joy, be near or far apart. Just like the moon may be dim or bright, wax or wane. People in Sri Lanka have a better understanding of the sentence.
In Xing's view, everything has a good side and a bad side.
"In the wake of the Easter Sunday attacks, we delivered food to our customers regardless of danger, so more people got to know about us. During Covid-19, I hope to send a touch of sweetness to people in our traditional holiday.”
This year, Xing also gave some mooncakes to her Sri Lankan neighbours and friends. They like these cakes very much. Xing said, "There is a feeling of making friends through tasty Chinese food."
The past two years have been special and everyone has his or her own difficulties. In the future, Xing hopes to focus on traditional Chinese snacks and Chinese cakes. "People say that there will be rainbows after the storm, and I am still very optimistic about the prospects of Sri Lanka."