MOONCAKE FESTIVAL

The Mooncake Festival is the Mid-Autumn Festival celebrated in China and also in Indonesia by people of Chinese descent. At our school, we celebrate the Mooncake Festival by writing letters to our parents in Mandarin, and then the school gives us mooncakes to give to our parents. We give the letters and mooncakes to our parents and wish them a happy Mooncake Festival. Our parents are very happy and touched because we show them how much we care about them.

Usually, during the Mooncake Festival at our school, there are events such as decorating large boards with the Mooncake Festival theme, Mandarin singing competitions, and Chinese-style dancing. But this year, we didn’t celebrate it that way. We only wrote letters and gave mooncakes because the Mooncake Festival happened to fall during the week we had our midterm tests. However, the Mooncake Festival is still a memorable day for us because we all show care for each other. We also worship our ancestors who have passed away to honour 

the Mooncake Festival. We pray to our ancestors twice: early at 05:00 AM and 5:00 PM.

There are many things we do during the Mooncake Festival, such as having a meal together with our extended family, eating mooncakes, and enjoying Chinese food. We also chatted with each other, laughed together, and played small games like riddles or trivia about the history of the Mooncake Festival. Since I have a hobby of drawing, I drew pictures related to the Mooncake Festival, such as mooncakes with rabbits because mooncakes are often associated with rabbits. This is due to the legend of the Jade Rabbit, who lives on the moon with the moon goddess Chang’e. In Chinese culture, the rabbit is closely linked to the moon, so it appears in many stories related to the Mooncake Festival.

That’s my experience with the Mooncake Festival. Thank you.

CAREN TJAN/12 IPS