Nearly 50,000 citizens in east China's Suzhou City chowed down on a 5,400-kilogram moon cake on October 1, the National Day and the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Among those tasting the five-ton, five-meter wide pastry were soldiers of the People's Liberation Army, builders of the Suzhou-Jiaxing-Hangzhou expressway, residents of a Suzhou senior citizenshome, and farmers from five towns near the Suzhou Industrial Park.

The moon cake was made Monday night by chefs from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. It is five meters in diameter and 20 centimeters in height.

Organizers of the activity named the moon cake the "China Reunion Moon" in honor of the Mid-Autumn Festival, which fell on Monday this year, a festival marked by Chinese around the world as a day of family reunion.

It took the organizers nearly seven hours from 8:30 a.m. Tuesday to 3 p.m. to slice the cake into bite-sized pieces and put them into 350 boxes for distribution, each weighing 15 kilograms.

(eastday.com 10/04/2001)