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It may still be Summer, but we have a date for your diary. The Mid-Autumn Festival Celebrations will be held in Birmingham's Arcadian Centre on Sunday 22nd September 2013 from 1.00pm-4.00pm.
We have a packed programme of musical performances, traditional dancing, and martial arts demonstrations planned, and of course it wouldn't be a Chinese festival without our high-kicking Lion dance performances.
The programme is still being finalised by our wonderful Committee and we will update you with more details nearer to the time.
We look forward to seeing you all there!
About the Mid-Autumn Festival
The Mid-Autumn Festival （中秋節 － zung cau zit or zhōngqiū jié) follows the Chinese Lunar Calendar and always falls upon the 15th day of the 8th Lunar month (8月15) which is the day that the moon is said to be at its brightest and most round. It has been celebrated for almost 3000 years and has many meanings.
In the beginning, the Mid-Autumn Festival was primarily a harvest festival, with families and communities gathering together to celebrate the completion of a successful harvest.
The festival also commemorates a 14th Century uprising against the Mongols. In a cunning plan, rebels wrote the call to revolt on pieces of paper and embedded them in cakes that they smuggled to their compatriots.
Contemporary Celebrations
Today, during the festival, people eat special sweet cakes known as "Moon Cakes" (月饼 －jyut beng or yuèbĭng) made of ground lotus and sesame seed paste which contain egg-yolk in the centre, commemorating the messages which were once contained within the cakes.
Along with the cakes, families make or buy colourful Chinese paper lanterns in all shapes and sizes ranging from the traditional to animals, cartoon characters and space ships.
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