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Aug 31, 2011

HAPPY MID-AUTUM FESTIVAL

Happy Mooncake Festival. This festival will be celebrated on September 12, 2011 by all Chinese and others who will be celebrating this great Festival.




The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival or Zhongqiu Festival (traditional Chinese: 中秋節; simplified Chinese: 中秋节; pinyin: Zhōngqiūjié; Vietnamese: Tết Trung Thu), is a popular harvest festival celebrated by Chinese and Vietnamese people, dating back over 3,000 years to moon worship in China's Shang Dynasty. It was first called Zhongqiu Jie (literally "Mid-Autumn Festival") in the Zhou Dynasty.[1] In Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, it is also sometimes referred to as the Lantern Festival or Mooncake Festival.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which is in September or early October in the Gregorian calendar. It is a date that parallels the autumnal equinox of the solar calendar, when the moon is at its fullest and roundest. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are many different varieties.


Yook Tho Yin
The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the few most important holidays in the Chinese calendar, the others being Chinese New Year and Winter Solstice, and is a legal holiday in several countries. Farmers celebrate the end of the fall 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 under the moon together. Accompanying the celebration, there are additional cultural or regional customs, such as:

Carrying brightly lit lanterns, lighting lanterns on towers, floating sky lanterns
Burning incense in reverence to deities including Chang'e (Chinese: 嫦娥; pinyin: Cháng'é)
Erect the Mid-Autumn Festival.(树中秋,竖中秋,in China,树 and 竖 are homophones)It is not about planting trees but hanging lanterns on the bamboo pole and putting them on a high point, such as roofs, trees, terraces, etc. It is a custom in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, etc.
Collecting dandelion leaves and distributing them evenly among family members
Fire Dragon Dances
In Taiwan, since the 1980s, barbecuing meat outdoors has become a widespread way to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Shops selling mooncakes before the festival often display pictures of Chang'e floating to the moon. Extracted from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival

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