With a few weeks to go until the traditional Mid Autumn Festival which is held on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, HCM City is already bustling with people buying mooncakes for relatives and friends.
Parents and teachers often tell the real story behind the cake's history to the children at a very early age.
Anh says that the lotus and green bean paste inside the cakes represent nature and people, while the egg symbolises yin and yang, the ancient Chinese philosophy of positive and negative forces.
The mooncake comes in two varieties, sweet banh deo (sticky rice cake) and savoury banh nuong (baked cake).
Anh and her classmates will celebrate the festival by making the cake at home and then eating it at school.
The first mooncake bakers in HCM City were Chinese-Vietnamese residents who lived in District 5's China town in the 1940s.
In 1960, popular mooncake bakeries, such as Dong Khanh, Long Xuong and Dong Hung Vien, began to deliver and sell their products to other southern and central provinces.
But many housewives still make homemade cakes every year for their family and friends.
Special banh nuong, made with bird's nest and shark fins, costs at least VND400,000 ($19) each. The largest, weighing a kilo, costs about VND1 million ($48).
In June, Kinh Do exported more than 100,000 mooncakes to the US and has prepared to sell the cakes to foreign markets like France, Australia and Cambodia.
In northern provinces, mooncakes under the brandnames like Hai Ha, Huu Nghi and Ha Noi, are popular among customers.
Anh says that the lotus and green bean paste inside the cakes represent nature and people, while the egg symbolises yin and yang, the ancient Chinese philosophy of positive and negative forces.
The mooncake comes in two varieties, sweet banh deo (sticky rice cake) and savoury banh nuong (baked cake).
Anh and her classmates will celebrate the festival by making the cake at home and then eating it at school.
The first mooncake bakers in HCM City were Chinese-Vietnamese residents who lived in District 5's China town in the 1940s.
In 1960, popular mooncake bakeries, such as Dong Khanh, Long Xuong and Dong Hung Vien, began to deliver and sell their products to other southern and central provinces.
But many housewives still make homemade cakes every year for their family and friends.
Special banh nuong, made with bird's nest and shark fins, costs at least VND400,000 ($19) each. The largest, weighing a kilo, costs about VND1 million ($48).
In June, Kinh Do exported more than 100,000 mooncakes to the US and has prepared to sell the cakes to foreign markets like France, Australia and Cambodia.
In northern provinces, mooncakes under the brandnames like Hai Ha, Huu Nghi and Ha Noi, are popular among customers.
