The Mid-Autumn Festival or Moon Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese Calendar, which is usually around late September or early October in the Gregorian calendar. It is a date that parallels the autumn and spring Equinoxes of the solar calendar, when the moon is supposedly at its fullest and roundest.Chinese people like the moon very much. In Chinese culture, the full moon is a symbol of peace and prosperity for the whole family. Its roundness symbolizes wholeness and togetherness. In the middle of the eighth month of the Chinese calendar the moon is full, and eight is also a popular number in Chinese culture.
Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date. Traditionally, on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomelos together. Accompanying the celebration, there are additional cultural or regional customs, such as:
Eating moon cakes outside under the moon
- Putting pomelo rinds on one's head
- Carrying brightly lit lanterns, lighting lanterns on towers, floating sky lanterns
- Burning incense in reverence to deities including Chang'e
- Planting Mid-Autumn trees
- Collecting dandelion leaves and distributing them evenly among family members
- Fire Dragon Dances
The main celebrations during the Moon Festival are appreciating the moon, eating moon cakes together and making Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival lanterns though mid-autumn lanterns are not as colourful as the ones in Lantern Festival. These three celebrations or rituals have been passed from generation to generation. Chinese people may think the Mid-Autumn Festival is not coming if they don’t do these three things. This Year It's on 3rd October 2009
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