Mid Autumn Festival (中秋節) Zhōngqiū jié, is a very important festival in the Chinese calendar. This year in 2021, it falls on today, 21st of September. Traditionally this is an autumn harvest festival celebrated during the full moon of the 8th lunar month, and family members come together, eat mooncakes and dumplings and drink tea, and also light up lanterns.
[Picture above] If you haven’t tasted a mooncake before, where possible, take the opportunity to visit any Chinatown or Chinese restaurants near yourself, and you may be able to purchase a mooncake. There a many varieties of mooncakes and a very traditional variety would be the baked thin skin mooncake with lotus paste. Or try any of the hundreds of other varieties and flavor, mostly sweet, but also savory. There are also mooncakes made with ice cream or jelly.
[Picture above] A home made lantern with the Local Guides Community logo. Just needs 2 pieces of A4 paper and a stapler. Learn how to make it here. Link: How to make lanterns for Mid Autumn Festival.
[Pictures above] One of the favorite food for almost all celebrations are dumplings or 饺子 (Jiaozhi), which symbolizes happiness, prosperity and good luck. Today I had self made dumplings for dinner.
[Picture above] Lantern lit, moon cake cut, tea poured, and Chinese music playing in the background. A simple way to just celebrate Mid Autumn Festival at home.
Fell free to view a very short animated video from “Chinahighlights” YouTube below to understand the legend more. [YouTube video below]
In Malaysia, as Local Guides, best places to visit during Mid Autumn Festival (outside of the pandemic) would be
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Kuala Lumpur Chinatown (https://g.page/chinatown-kuala-lumpur?share )
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Penang Chinatown (https://goo.gl/maps/136y3zFVpkWvfGtK9 )
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Melaka Jonker Walk (https://goo.gl/maps/n9WQWjaX66G8k1tEA )
And almost all Chinese bakeries around the city will sell mooncakes during this time. Here are some locations where mooncakes can be purchased (https://www.google.com/maps/search/mooncake/@3.1093838,101.6686538,13z )
