Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!!

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, Zhongqiu Festival, or in Chinese, Zhongqiujie (中秋節), is a popular harvest festival celebrated by Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese people, dating back over 3,000 years to moon worship in China's Shang Dynasty. It was first called Zhongqiu Jie (literally "Mid-Autumn Festival") in the Zhou Dynasty. In Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, it is also sometimes referred to as the Lantern Festival or Mooncake Festival.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which is usually around late September or early October. The traditional food of this festival is the moon cake, a small cake filled with many different types of fillings. In Taiwan, we barbeque outdoors with family and friends.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the few most important holidays in the Chinese calendar, and is a legal holiday in Taiwan. Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date. Traditionally, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomelos (similar to a grapefruit) under the moon together. Along with these customs, we celebrate several others, including:

 Putting pomelo rinds on one's head

 Burning incense out of respect for figures including Chang'e

 Collecting dandelion leaves and giving them to family members

 Fire Dragon Dances

In Taiwan, since the 1980s, barbecuing meat outdoors has become a widespread way to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival.