What is the Mid-Autumn Festival and how do Hong Kongers celebrate?

Joyce Chiang, Project Director, Welcoming Committee for Hong Kongers

Traditional mooncake with lotus seed filling + salty egg yolk (Photo: Wah Yee Tang)

If you have friends from East or South East Asia, the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節), or Moon festival, will probably be familiar to you. It is celebrated by many East/South East Asian countries, on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month – which means 29th September this year. The festival emerged from the celebration of the harvest with friends and families, while the family union is still a major element of celebrations too. So this makes it an especially important time for those living far away from their family and friends, as many of the UK’s BN(O) Hong Kongers are.

Running custard mooncake has become popular (photo: Patisserie La Lune)

Like Lunar New Year, the celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival varies across different regions. Take Mooncake as an example: although everyone who celebrates the Mid-Autumn festival will have Mooncakes, the mooncake style differs across different regions. In Hong Kong we are closer to the Cantonese style, so the traditional mooncake has a softer crust with a Lotus Seed or Red bean paste filling, usually with salty egg yolk in it too. Some like the fillings of nuts and ham. In recent years, the running custard cream filling with a more crispy crust became more common in Hong Kong, and it becomes a signature Hong Kong style mooncake; both are very different from the mooncakes of other East/South East Asian regions (i’m using ‘region’ instead of ‘country’ here, as even in China, the mooncakes vary across different regions!)

Parks usually packed with families and groups watching the moon at the mid-autumn festival. (photo: epoch times)

What to do at the Mid-Autumn Festival? For grow-ups, it is a more tranquil celebration: after having a meal with family, most people would bring along some autumn fruit (like yuzu or starfruit), mooncakes, some snacks and drink, and have a picnic outdoors to watch the moon – which is usually round and bright at the time of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Lanterns with cartoon characters become more popular recent years (Photo: Dayan life)

Lanterns are an important element of the Mid-Autumn Festival too. Not only for decoration, but also for kids to carry around and play with when adults are picnicking and watching the moon. In the older days – ie when I was small – it was more common to light the lanterns with a candle. The naughty kids (including me), would make use of the metal boxes carrying the mooncake, to light the candles in the mooncake, making a ‘sea of wax’ - we even brought our water guns to match who can put out the candles with water from the furthest distance. When I look back as an adult I can’t understand why it was fun, but we did have lots of good times lighting the candles and melting the wax. However, after a few accidents and fires, many parks banned people playing with candles – so electric lanterns have now replaced the candle lantern in recent years. Still, getting a lantern decorated with their beloved cartoon characters, and carrying them around when going out to watch the moon with their parents, remains something special for children.

With family reunion a crucial element of the Mid-Autumn festival, it becomes a more significant celebration for those far away from home, their family and their friends, including many Hong Kongers. Most of us are unable to reunite with our extended family and many of our friends in Hong Kong, so taking the chance to gather with friends nearby, or joining with other Hong Kongers to celebrate, becomes more important. Many Welcoming groups are organising Mid-Autumn events across the UK, and there are a number of shops run by Hong Kongers that are selling Hong Kong style mooncakes as well, if you’d like to try. Make sure you’ve got your picnic rug ready for the 29th of September!

Where to get Mooncakes:

And the Asian Grocery stores

Mid-Autumn festival events:

Victoria Harbour Group: London Mid-Autumn Festival Fair

Good Neighbour Church (Manchester): Mid-Autumn Festival Fun Day

(more events coming, you may follow our page or check with the Hong Kongers in your local community!)