Mid Autumn Festival 2023: (10 Sep), Quotes, Wishes, Messages, Status & Greetings. It’s time to hang a lantern, rip open a moon cake, and peel a pomelo — Mid-Autumn Festival is just around the corner. In 2023, the event — celebrated primarily in East and Southeast Asia — falls on September 10. Here’s a bit of background and a few tips on how to join this massive full-moon party.
Falling on the 10th day of the eighth lunar month, Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Festival, is when families gather to sample autumn harvests and light lanterns, and admire what’s believed to be the fullest moon of the year.
How to celebrate Mid Autumn Festival?
The Tai Hang fire dragon dance is performed in Hong Kong.
When it comes to the festival, customs vary throughout Asia.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is considered “children’s day” in Vietnam and celebrations include paper lantern fairs and lion dance parades. Meanwhile, in southern China, most people will light a lantern and eat autumn fruits such as pomelo and starfruit.
Some villages in Hong Kong still preserve the tradition of fire dragon dancing through a narrow alley.
Japanese, meanwhile will eat grilled sticky rice balls called tsukimi dango (“moon viewing”) while admiring the astronomical body.
In South Korea, the mid-Autumn Festival is a three-day holiday, a time to sweep ancestors’ tombs and wear traditional attire.
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What are the origins of the Happy Mid-Autumn Festival 2023?
Mid-Autumn Festival became an official celebration in China during the Tang Dynasty 618-907 CE but there isn’t one single answer to the question of when and how the Mid-Autumn Festival began.
It was described as a day for emperors to celebrate the year’s harvest by giving offerings to the moon and hosting a great feast.
Many believe the fete was first mentioned in the “Book of Rites,” a Confucius classic on bureaucracy and rituals written more than 2,400 years ago.
Today, the Mid-Autumn is an incredibly important family gathering — it’s when “people and the moon reunite to form a full circle,” as an old saying goes.
According to the legend, after mythological Chinese archer How Yi courageously shot down nine surplus suns — leaving only one, in effect protecting the world from being scorched completely — he was given an elixir from heaven.
Like many cultural celebrations, the Mid-Autumn Festival is shrouded in myth. One of the most beloved — and tragic — pieces of folklore tells the story of how Change became the moon goddess.
Hou Yi’s wife Change drank the elixir while protecting it from a greedy apprentice, but became so light that she floated to the moon.
Just how well-known is this story?
Missing his wife, Hou Yi prepared a feast every year on the day when the moon is at its fullest, hoping to get a glimpse of his wife’s shadow.
One of the biggest stars of the Mid-Autumn Festival is the mooncake — it’s as important to festivities as the turkey is to Thanksgiving and latkes are to Hanukah.
The calorie-packed pastry is sliced up and shared like a cake between families and friends.
The most common kind of mooncake is made of lotus seed paste, salted egg yolk, and lard — which explains why a palm-sized cake can contain about 1,000 calories.
In recent years, big brands have taken to creating specially designed mooncakes. The Palace Museum in Beijing, for example, offers some particularly stunning ones.
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