The Mid-Autumn Festival, also called the Moon Festival or the Mooncake Festival, is the second most important festival in China after the Chinese New Year. It falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month. In ancient China, the Mid-Autumn Festival was a celebration of the harves t of rice and fruit. Ceremonies (仪式) were held both to give thanks for the harvest (收获) and to encourage the harvest-giving light to return again in the coming year. Chinese people celebrated it by admiring the moon, lighting paper lanterns, eating mooncakes, and so on.
The Mid-Autumn Festival has a history of over 3, 000 years, derived from the custom of admiring the moon in autumn to thank it for the harvest. In the process of historical developments, the Mid-Autumn Festival now has more meanings, the families get together to enjoy the family love and hope to have good health and happiness.
Nowadays, people have a day off(假期) on Mid-Autumn Day. The roundness of the moon is a symbol of the reunion(团圆) of the family in Chinese minds, so people usually have dinner at home with family, eat mooncakes together in the beautiful moonlight or visit their relatives' homes to express their love and best wishes.
