Mid-Autumn in the textbooks is mooncakes and a poem. Mid-Autumn if you live here is a message on Wednesday: we are grilling, come if you are free. It will not come with a time. It will not come with a dress code. It is still the assignment.
Bring pomelos, or grapes, or beer that can warm up without becoming a problem. Do not bring a lantern speech, and do not bring the expensive box from the hotel unless you know they collect boxes. The Tourism Administration page will tell you about moon-gazing sites. The actual site is someone else’s tiled floor, two stools, and a portable grill that is slightly too close to the railing.
Parks and riverside barbecues fill on Friday night — Da’an, Dadaocheng Wharf, the bridges. Sky lanterns are not a Taipei thing, and they are banned in the city for a reason. If you are asked to a park, go early enough to find a square of ground, and leave it cleaner than you found it.
The people who skip this year because they are tired skip the year they would have remembered. Say yes. Eat. Look up when they look up.