Mid-Autumn Festival: A moonlit tradition across millennia

The Mid-Autumn Festival is China's second-biggest traditional holiday after Chinese New Year, marked on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, when the moon appears at its fullest and brightest of the year. In the nation's agrarian past, this was the time when the main harvest had just ended and the air turned clear and cool, making it ideal for both thanksgiving and celebration. Ancient Chinese believed that a full moon meant balance between heaven and earth, abundance and renewal.

Moonlight and myth

The term "Mid-Autumn" (Zhongqiu, literally "middle of autumn") first appeared in "The Rites of Zhou," an early classic on state rituals compiled before the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC – AD 9). By the Tang Dynasty (AD 618 – 907), as prosperity blossomed and literati met under lantern light to compose poems, moon-viewing had become fashionable, and the festival was recognized as an official observance.

China's fascination with the moon runs deep. As early as the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 – 1046 BC), inscriptions recorded moon worship. Among the stories passed through centuries, none shines brighter than that of Chang'e, who drank an elixir of immortality and drifted skyward to the moon. There she dwells with the Jade Rabbit – its outline traced in the moon's pale shadows – pounding herbs for the gods. The rabbit's unending fertility, echoing the lunar cycle, made it a symbol of life and renewal. Together, Chang'e and her companion turned the moon into a realm of mystery, beauty, and a quiet longing. Centuries later, China's own lunar-exploration project would proudly bear her name.

From north to south

Though the festival's spirit of reunion unites the nation, its expressions change with the map – shaped by weather, harvests and history.

In the north, where autumn skies are crisp and cloudless, families head to parks, rooftops or hillsides to watch the full moon climb above the horizon. In Beijing, people once offered clay figurines of Tu'er Ye, the "Lord Rabbit," a folk deity inspired by the moon's Jade Rabbit believed to have descended to Earth to heal the sick. Dressed in painted robes and holding a pestle, she embodied health, protection and good fortune.

Farther south, celebrations take on extra color and creativity. In Fujian, once a cradle of imperial exam champions, families play Bo Bing, a lively dice game invented during the Ming-Qing era (17th Century). Each throw corresponds to an ancient exam rank – champion, runner-up or scholar – with mooncakes as prizes. It's part game, part wish for success. In Fujian and neighboring Guangdong, villagers light towering "burning towers," bonfires that blaze like golden beacons against the night, warding off misfortune and welcoming prosperity.

In Guangdong, families prepare offerings to the "Moon Lady," a gentle nickname for the moon itself. Tables of fruit, tea and mooncakes are set in courtyards; people bow in thanks under the silver light, a ritual echo of the region's sea-faring and trade-rich culture. In Zhejiang, crowds gather along the Qiantang River around Mid-Autumn to watch its famous tidal bore, a roaring wall of water that rises with the autumn moon, turning the riverbank into nature's own grand performance.

In the south, lanterns bloom after dusk, with rabbits, lotus flowers, even tiny palaces glowing against the night. Lantern riddles add a playful spark. Since the Song Dynasty (AD 960 – 1279), strips of paper bearing clever puzzles have been pinned to glowing lanterns; whoever solves them first wins a cheer or a small prize, proving that wisdom too can light up the night.

Whether under northern skies or southern palms, everyone agrees on one thing: no Mid-Autumn is complete without mooncakes. Geography shaped the recipe.

In the humid south, where sugarcane was plentiful, sweetness came effortlessly. Ingredients like cured ham, pork floss and salted egg yolks, all made to last through the humid season, found their way into mooncakes along with nuts. In the Jiangnan region, where osmanthus flowers bloom in autumn, people sip fragrant osmanthus wine, believing its golden petals link heaven's moon with home on Earth.

In the drier north, where sugar was rarer, people turned to dates, beans and nuts for a more rustic kind of sweetness. Families often paired their mooncakes with seasonal fruits such as pomegranates or water caltrops – symbols of fertility, abundance and family prosperity.

Under the same moon

Today, the Mid-Autumn Festival glows well beyond China's borders. Lantern parades light up San Francisco's Chinatown; mooncake bazaars fill Singapore and Kuala Lumpur; in Sydney, Tokyo and Vancouver, lion dances and moon-viewing nights bring communities together. For overseas Chinese, it's a bridge to home. For everyone else, it's an open invitation to share in a culture that sees beauty in balance and reunion.

What keeps the festival relevant in an age of speed and screens is its rhythm. The same moon that once guided farmers through the harvest still rises on our glass cities, just as constant, just as whole. Its cycle – from shadow to light, from crescent to full – mirrors the pattern of human life: absence and return, distance and closeness, longing and fulfillment. In a sense, the festival restores what modern life erodes.

Each year, when people pause to look up, pour tea or share a mooncake, they are reminded that even in a fast-changing world, some things endure: the warmth of connection, the gratitude for enough, and the comfort of knowing that others, far away, are looking at the same sky.

That is why the Mid-Autumn Festival has lasted more than a thousand years – not just as a tradition, but as a rhythm of the heart.

(Cover: Visitors in traditional Hanfu strolled through Wuhan Garden Expo Park to enjoy the Mid-Autumn moon, central China's Hubei Province, September 21, 2021. /VCG)