Moon Festival

Chinese people are celebrating Moon Festival today. Zhong Qiu Jie is also known as Moon Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and in Vietnamese “Tet Trung Thu”. This festival has no fixed date in the Western calendar, but the day always coincides with a full moon and is celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar which falls today September 22nd in this year (2010). This is much like the Western Thanksgiving celebration in which family gathers for a reunion. It has believe that in this day, the Harvest Moon is the roundest and brightest signaling a time of completeness and abundance.

Mid-Autumn Festival celebration started in the early Tang Dynasty (618 – 907), a period of material abundance and cultural blossoming. The Chinese worshipped the moon by offering liquor, fruit and snacks outdoors, expressing thanks for bumper harvest and praying for the god of the moon to bring good luck. Now the traditional festival is celebrated with families enjoy the sight of the Full Moon and children delightedly parading multi-colored lanterns also known as the “Lantern Festival” along the streets. And also the traditional food of this festival is the Mooncakes for presents to families, relatives and friends. Chinese believe that producing them is labor-intensive, that is why most preferred to buy them than making it themselves.