Guangdong province
In Chaoshan, women and children worship the moon. When the night comes, they will burn joss sticks in front of a table of fresh fruit as a sacrifice. Later that night they will also eat the vegetable taros. There are two reasons why people there eat this vegetable. One is that August is the best time to eat ripe taros, and the other comes from a story.
In 1279 the Mongols defeated the Southern Song Dynasty and formed the Yuan Dynasty, carrying out their cruel domination over the Han Chinese. At that time, a well-known general called Ma Fa remained in Chaozhou to fight the Mongols. When he failed, most of the citizens were killed. Because the Chinese word for taros and Mongols were similar, people began eating taros to prove they will always remember the pain caused by the Mongols. To eat the taro means to eat the heads of the Mongols.
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