Mooncakes, the seasonal treat shared by families and friends during Mid-Autumn Festival, have become a focus of competition among pastry makers, with the traditional holiday for family reunions less than a week away.

Traditional fillings such as lotus seed paste with egg yolk for popular Cantonese-style mooncakes and other common fillings like sweet bean paste, jujube paste and the "five kernels" (a mix of walnuts, peanuts, sesame seeds, almonds and sunflower seeds) are not the only game in town.

A debate is raging on Chinese social media about what's the best and courteous way of eating mooncakes.

Some people insist that the preferences vary from region to region.

For example, the people from south China like to cut a mooncake into pieces and savor its texture while people from the north like to eat as it is, wondering why some people would cut a mooncake.

China Daily conducted an online poll on Weibo, where 59.5% chose to eat a mooncake up straight while 19.3% preferred to cut it into pieces before eating.

The idea originates from a Chinese stereotype—people from the north is more straightforward while people from the south is usually reserved and likes to enjoy every bit of life.

However, some don't really agree with the "geography theory," they believe that how one would eat a mooncake actually depends on its size while others say that it may have a connection with the person's age.