About » News » Mid-Autumn Festival
Following the success of last year's inaugural Mid-Autumn Festival, the Birmingham Chinese Festival Committee are delighted to announce its return, at a more convenient time of the week!
This year's Mid-Autumn Festival will take place on Sunday 30th September from 5.30-7.30pm in the Arcadian Centre in Birmingham's Chinatown. A varied programme of traditional Chinese cultural performances, high-kicking Lion Dancing and the all important Lantern Parade has been put together by our Committee and the programme will be rounded off with a spectacular fireworks display in the presence of the Lord Mayor of Birmingham.
Entry to the Festival is of course FREE for all and we welcome families from all comunities to come and enjoy the Festival and learn about one of the oldest and most important Festivals in the Chinese calendar.
Click here to see the programme for the evening.
About Mid-Autumn Festival
The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the most charming and colourful annual events that celebrates, among other things, harvest time with the biggest and brightest moon of the year.
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 compatriots.
Today, during the festival, people eat special sweet cakes known as "Moon Cakes" made of ground lotus and sesame seed paste, egg-yolk and other ingredients. Along with the cakes, shops sell colourful Chinese paper lanterns in the shapes of animals, and more recently, in the shapes of aeroplanes and space ships.
On this family occasion, parents allow children to stay up late and take them to high vantage points to light their lanterns and watch the huge autumn moon rise while eating their moon cakes.
Social Media