Mid-Autumn Festival

The moon and Chang’e

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the most important celebrations in Chinese culture. The Chinese have celebrated the harvest under the autumn full moon since the Shang dynasty, and the term “mid-autumn” first appears in the Rites of Zhou. The festival became popular in the early Tang dynasty, and by the Ming and Qing it was one of China’s main folk festivals.

It is tied to the legend of Chang’e. In one version, the archer Hou Yi shot down nine of ten suns that were scorching the earth and was given an elixir of immortality. When his apprentice tried to steal it, his wife Chang’e swallowed it herself and flew to the moon. Hou Yi laid out the fruit and cakes she liked in offering, and people joined him — the beginning, the story says, of praying to the moon on this night.

Gathering, lanterns and mooncakes

The festival is above all about gathering. Families meet outdoors to eat mooncakes and watch the moon, a symbol of harmony and unity. Brightly lit lanterns are carried, hung on towers or floated as sky lanterns, and riddles are written on them for others to guess. In the past the senior member of a household would cut the mooncakes and hand a piece to each person; today mooncakes are more often given as gifts. Dragon and lion dances are performed, mainly in southern China.