Chapter I
What it celebrates
Autumn rites to the moon are recorded in early China, and poets of the Tang dynasty wrote of viewing the mid-autumn moon; by the Song dynasty the night had become a popular festival with markets, music and moon-viewing pavilions. Su Shi’s poem of 1076, written on this night for his absent brother, ends with the wish that loved ones far apart may share the beauty of the same moon, and is still sung today.
The festival gathers several strands of Chinese religion: thanks for the harvest, offerings to the moon and to household gods, and, at its heart, the family, honoured in Confucian thought as the root of a good society.
Chapter II
How it is kept
Families come home for a dinner, then sit outside to look at the moon. A table may be set with mooncakes, round fruit such as pomelos and grapes, tea and incense as an offering to the moon, traditionally made by the women of the household. Mooncakes are filled with lotus-seed or red-bean paste, often with a salted egg yolk standing for the moon, and are boxed and given to relatives, friends and colleagues in the weeks before.
Children carry paper lanterns in the shapes of rabbits, fish and stars, and in some places lanterns carry riddles to be guessed. A later folk tale says that messages hidden in mooncakes once called the Chinese to rise against Mongol rule.
Chapter III
Around the world
The festival is a public holiday in mainland China and Taiwan, and in Hong Kong and Macau the day after is a holiday. In Vietnam Tết Trung Thu is above all a children’s festival, with lantern processions and lion dances. Chinese communities in Singapore and Malaysia hang lanterns in streets and temples, while Korea keeps the same day as Chuseok and Japan as tsukimi, the moon-viewing.