Widu

Lanterns will be lit and traditional pastries will be exchanged today for the annual Mid-Autumn Festival, a harvest celebration that falls on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese lunar calendar.

The festival, which this year falls on 15 September, is celebrated in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan and neighbouring countries. It is the second most important festival after the Spring Festival and honours the full moon as a symbol of peace, prosperity and family reunion.

One of the key elements of the festival is the exchange of Chinese pastries called mooncakes. Their round shape symbolises completeness and sharing the moon cakes signifies the unity of families.

A rich thick filling is usually made from red bean or lotus seed paste, but they can also contain fruit, chocolate or savoury foods. The Cantonese mooncake may contain a salted duck egg yolk (or two) and be covered with a pastry crust often baked with lard.

A popular Chinese folk tale about the festival involves the 14th-century overthrow of the Mongolian empire in China. According to folklore, ethnic Han rebels smuggled letters into moon cakes which instructed citizens to boycott their oppressive rulers.

The Mid-Autumn festival is named "Tết Trung Thu" in Vietnamese. It is also known as Children's Festival because of the event's emphasis on children.

In olden times, the Vietnamese believed that children, being innocent and pure, had the closest connection to the sacred and natural world. Being close to children was seen as a way to connect with animist spirits and deities.

In its most ancient form, the evening commemorated the dragon who brought rain for the crops.

Celebrants would observe the moon to divine the future of the people and harvests. Eventually the celebration came to symbolize a reverence for fertility, with prayers given for bountiful harvests, increase in livestock, and human babies. Over time, the prayers for children evolved into a celebration of children.

Confucian scholars continued the tradition of gazing at the moon, but to sip wine and improvise poetry and song.

By the early twentieth century in Hanoi, the festival had begun to assume its identity as a children's festival.

Aside from the story of Chang'e (Vietnamese: Hằng Nga), there are two other popular folktales associated with the festival. The first describes the legend of Cuội, whose wife accidentally urinated on a sacred banyan tree. The tree began to float towards the moon, and Cuội, trying to pull it back down to earth, floated to the moon with it, leaving him stranded there. Every year, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, children light lanterns and participate in a procession to show Cuội the way back to Earth.

The other tale involves a carp who wanted to become a dragon, and as a result, worked hard throughout the year until he was able to transform himself into a dragon.

One important event before and during the festival are lion dances. Dances are performed by both non-professional children's groups and trained professional groups. Lion dance groups perform on the streets, going to houses asking for permission to perform for them. If the host consents, the "lion" will come in and start dancing as a blessing of luck and fortune for the home. In return, the host gives lucky money to show their gratitude

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