Harvest Moon Festival

Last weekend, October 7, we traveled a few hours to Michigan for a Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. "Many Asian cultures mark the end of the summer harvest with a festival. This happens in the eight lunar month, when the full moon is at its brightest. In Vietnam and China, families take the time to relax and enjoy the moon's beauty while the children have fun making lanterns for late night parades and contests. The holiday is almost like Thanksgiving and Halloween combined since it focuses on the harvest, families, and children who especially enjoy indulging in sweets and receiving toys.

A popular treat is the mooncake, a pastry that's round, just like the moon! Friends, schoolmates, colleagues, and neigbors like to give each other boxes of these goodies. Dense, rich and sweet, the mooncakes have fillings such as lotus nut paste, pineapple, and in some cases even ham!

In Vietnam the festival is called Tet Trung Thu and in China it's called Zhong Qiu Jie. Vietnam used to be a part of China so the tradition in similar. Cambodians celelbrate Bonn Om Touk and Koreans have a great time during Chusok. Each culture and country celebrates the holiday a little differently but the focus of spending time together with family is the same." (Taken from the Mam Non newsletter)

The event was held at an orchard; so amongst all the planned activites was a petting farm, many pumpkins, and silly cut-outs to put your face in for pictures. Mam Non organization put on the event. The activities included making laterns, Vietnamese bamboo dancing, Chinese yo-yo peformance, astronomy demonstration, many telescopes set up (we saw Jupiter), games & face painting for the kids. At the end, everyone went on a lantern wagon ride. We also ate Vietnamese pho soup. It was very good. Consists of a yummy broth, transparent white noodles, chicken, some kind of lettuce and green onions. I also bought Chinese and Vietnamese mooncakes. They were not a sweet as I expected, but we are used to American sugary treats, right?

My mom and grandma went to the festival with us. So our family celebrated the moon festival with 4 generations. The moon was beautiful. We live in a woods so many times we are limited by what we see, except for straight up. Both Wyatt and Ellayna kept looking and commenting on the moon the entire evening. It did make an impression on them. We stayed at a hotel with a heated pool, so the kids had an extra good time. Wyatt said, "I didn't know we were going to have so much fun!"