The Mid-Autumn Festival is the second most important traditional festival in China (the most important one is Chinese New Year). It's a family day in Chian like Thanksgiving. There are many traditional and new celebrations.
As the Mid-Autumn Festival represents the reunion of families, families will have dinner together on that night. People who don't have time to stay with their parents will try their best to go home to at least have dinner together. Therefore, there can be traffic jams during this festival.
A mooncake is a traditional Chinese pastry. It is made from wheat flour and sweet stuffing, such as sugar and lotus seed powder.
It's a symbol of family reunion, and the cake is traditionally cut into pieces that equal the number of people in the family..
Eating mooncakes is the most common and representative tradition of the day. In ordinary times, people won't buy or eat mooncakes but during the Mid-Autumn Festival everyone will have a mooncake to celebrate.
Nowadays, people still like appreciating the moon during the Mid-Autumn Festival in China. Chinese family members have dinner together in the evening of the Mid-Autumn Festival. After dinner, they may talk about their work, the children, and their future plans.
Chinese people like to find the best place that offers a great view of the moon, such as the roof, a balcony, a mountaintop, or a lakeside.
There is a beautiful fairy tale called "The Goddess Chang's fly to the moon"
Long, long ago, there were ten suns in the sky. The suns burnt all the plants and people were dying on Earth, until one day excellent archer Hou Yi used his bow and arrows to shoot down nine of the suns. Earth was saved, and people flocked to learn archery from Hou Yi.
The Western Queen Mother gave Hou Yi a bottle of elixir that could make one person immortal. Although Hou Yi did want to become immortal, he wanted to stay with his wife Chang'e more. Therefore, he just kept it at home.
Pang Meng, one of his students, tried to seize the elixir when Hou Yi wasn't at home. Faced with greedy Pang Meng, Chang'e decided to drink the elixir. It made her fly to the moon where she would stay forever.
To remember her and pray to her, Hou Yi and others started to worship the moon with many offerings.
Chang'e's image usually appears on Mid-Autumn Festival pictures. Children in China are told that Chang'e is still living on the moon. And on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, when the moon is bright, children try their best to find the shape of Chang'e on the moon.
Making colorful lanterns is a happy activity between families and children. The lanterns have different shapes and can also resemble animals, plants, or flowers.
Children love making colorful lanterns. They make them in different shapes to be hung in trees or houses, or floated on rivers. Parks will also hang up colorful lanterns, which provide a beautiful view at night.
They also make Kongming lanterns, which can fly because the burning candles heat the air in the lantern. Children write good wishes on the lanterns and let them fly up into the sky.
Mon/Sat 9.00am to 7.00pm
