The Mid-Autumn Festival has a history of 2,000 years. During these 2,000 years lots of Mid-Autumn traditions have been thought up by Chinese people. All the celebrations show the happiness and excitement of people.
The main celebrations during the Mid-Autumn Festival are appreciating the moon, eating moon cakes together and making Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival lanterns. These three celebrations have been passed from generation to generation. Chinese people may think the Mid-Autumn Festival is not coming if they don't do these three things.
In some places in China people celebrate the festival in different ways. In Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, people eat taro(芋头) to celebrate the festival, because the taro harvest occurs at the same time as the festival. They eat taro and hope the harvest is good in the next year. In Nanjing, people cook duck with sweet-scented osmanthus (桂花) , because Nanjing people think sweet-scented osmanthus is a symbol of peace. In some places people make fires inside towers to celebrate the festival, because they think the fire is a symbol of good business.
In the literary history of China, many poets penned praise to the pure moon of mid-autumn night and gave words to their delicate feelings. The following is one of the best of those poems.
Thoughts in the Silent Night
-Li Bai
The moonlight is shining through the window,
And it makes me wonder if it is thefroston the ground,
Looking up to see the moon,
Looking down I miss so much about my hometown.
Li Bai used his lines to express his homesickness at the Moon Festival.
