While most people were looking forward to the Mid-autumn Festival, she was hoping it wouldn’t come quite so quickly. However, it didn’t really matter what anybody thought, mid-autumn gradually loomed closer and closer.

Closer and closer. She couldn’t help but work faster with her little hammer – tap-tap-crack, tap-tap-crack. A square stool, a quarter of a brick, a small hammer. The small hammer was welded for her by a friend at the workshop. It was just a piece of iron five centimetres long with a small handle attached. It was very handy. With the seed placed on the brick, the whole process only required three movements. With a vertical strike – the first ‘tap’ sounding more crisply than the second – the seed was split. Then, by twisting the seed between thumb and forefinger, there was a ‘crack’ and the white melon kernel jumped out of its red shell.