A Brief Introduction To The Mooncake Festival

Ah, festivals. A day of celebration, of gatherings and genuine joy. Lots of special things about them that make people love their arrival, whether it’s because they’re able to spend some quality time with family due to the festival holiday, or because the festival brings some downtime that people can use to rest up. Whatever meaning people give to it, festivals are a special thing to experience in their lives. Of course, throughout the year, they’re many festivals that people celebrate, such as the Diwali Festival celebrated in India and the Mardi Gras Festival in New Orleans. This early September however, the Mooncake Festival takes the spotlight around the world.
 

Mooncakes are the delicacy that the festival's name is based on | Credit: Nataliya Vaitkevich from Pexels

The Mooncake Festival, also called the Mid-Autumn Festival, is a festival that falls on the 15th day of the 8th month of the Chinese lunar calendar, where in 2022, it’s going to fall on September 10th. It’s actually the 2nd most important day in China aside from Chinese New Year where, traditionally, it’s celebrated to worship the moon and yearly harvest. Certain countries have certain traditions regarding the Mid-Autumn Festival, but in China, it’s usually celebrated similar to Thanksgiving where people enjoy family reunions (considering that the roundness of the moon symbolizes the reunion of families), eat dinner together, eat round and sweet mooncakes, as well as make colorful lanterns as decorations that create beautiful scenes at night time.

Aside from celebrations, you can find people giving out gifts on the Mooncake Festival | Credit: Global Times

When it comes to gifting on the Mooncake Festival, people have different takes on it. Traditionally speaking, the popular gifts for the Mid-Autumn Festival are: 

1. Mooncakes;
   Mooncakes are, well, the snack that the festival is named after. They’re the staple food, and in turn gift, of the Mooncake festival. They’re essentially sweets which are round in shape similar to the moon and filled with lotus or red bean paste. There are other variations of mooncakes where some are filled with meat, but traditionally, they’re filled with sweet-flavored filling.
    
2. Assortment of Tea;
   Tea has always been considered a healthy drink in Chinese culture, and complemented by the sweet-flavored mooncakes, the bitterness of tea can balance the flavor in people’s mouth throughout the festival.
    
3. Fruit Baskets
   As the festival name suggests, a fruit basket full of autumn fruits such as pears, grapes, grapefruits and pomegranates are usually given as gifts for family members as not only are they healthy, they’re also ripe at the time of the festival, making them taste even better.
    

Other gifts can be considered of course, maybe those that are theme-appropriate such as Chinese sweets like egg tarts and red bean cakes, but mooncakes, tea, and fruit baskets are the usual gifts that you can find being gifted on the Mooncake Festival.

And that’s the end of the brief introduction to the Mooncake Festival! If you want some more custom and exciting gift recommendations, go ahead and take a look at our Mooncake Festival gift recommendation article, and if you ever need help in creating some Mooncake Festival gift boxes, feel free to reach out to us!