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Mid-Autumn Festival (Mooncake Festival): Celebrations and Origins

The Mid-Autumn Festival is also called the Moon Festival or the Mooncake Festival. It traditionally falls on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese lunar calendar. In 2021, the Mid-Autumn Festival falls on September 21st (Tuesday). Chinese people have a 3-day public holiday from September 19th to 21st.

A “mid-autumn festival” is also celebrated in many other Asian communities besides China. In China, it's a reunion time for families, just like Thanksgiving, while in Vietnam, it's more like a children's day.

The Mooncake Festival is the second most important festival in China after Chinese New Year. Chinese people celebrate it by gathering for dinners, worshiping the moon, lighting paper lanterns, eating mooncakes, etc.

How the Chinese Celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival

Enjoying Family Reunions

The roundness of the moon represents the reunion of the family in Chinese minds. Families will have dinner together on the evening of the Mooncake Festival.

Eating Mooncakes

Mooncakes are the most representative food for the Mooncake Festival, because of their round shape and sweet flavor. Family members usually gather round and cut a mooncake into pieces and share its sweetness.

Appreciating the Moon

The full moon is the symbol of family reunions in Chinese culture. It is said, sentimentally, that “the moon on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival is the brightest and the most beautiful”.

Worshiping the Moon

According to the legend of the Mid-Autumn Festival, a fairy maiden named Chang’e lives on the moon with a cute rabbit. On the night of the Moon Festival, people set a table under the moon with mooncakes, snacks, fruits, and a pair of candles lit on it. Some believe that by worshiping the moon, Chang’e (the moon goddess) may fulfill their wishes.

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