Celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, occurred on September 17th, 2024. It is referred to as the Mid-Autumn Festival because it takes place in the middle of Autumn during the lunar year, at the end of the harvest season. In Chinese culture, the full moon represents prosperity and reunion. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, family and friends gather outdoors to celebrate the moon, a bountiful harvest, and one another's company. Festivities include moon viewings, poetry reciting, eating mooncakes, and lighting paper lanterns and releasing them into the night sky. The famous mooncakes are traditional Chinese pastries filled with sweet or savory fillings, and during celebrations, eating the delicacy with family is said to represent unity and fulfillment. Mooncakes may have even played a central role in liberating China from the Mongolian Empire in the 14th century when they were used to smuggle strips of paper that informed of uprisings happening amongst Chinese communities. 

The Mid-Autumn festival is celebrated not only in China but also in Chinese communities across the world, such as Malaysia, Singapore, and the United States. Some places hold their celebrations during the day, rather than at night when it’s traditionally celebrated, and host parades and celebrations after the official date of the holiday. The festival originated over two thousand years ago, and it began as a way of thanking the gods after the Autumn harvest’s bounty. It is widely believed that the tradition began during the Song dynasty, and several legends associate the moon with the harvest. The most popular of these legends is the story of the archer Hou Yi. This legend tells of an ancient earth with ten suns in the sky that were so hot they burned all of the plants on earth and endangered humans. One day, Hou Yi shot down nine of the suns to save the earth and its inhabitants, and as a reward, the gods gave him an elixir of eternal life. In one version of the legend, Hou Yi chooses not to use the elixir as his desire to live alongside his wife, Chang’e, outweighed the allure of immortality. However, one of his apprentices later threatened his wife and demanded the elixir. She knew she could not let him have the elixir, so she drank it to prevent him from taking it, becoming immortal, and ascending to the moon. In his grief, Hou Yi offered his wife's favorite cakes and fruits to the moon. In turn, he noticed a figure that resembled her swaying back and forth on the moon's surface.