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 in the Gregorian calendar. It is a date that parallels the autumnal equinox of the solar calendar, when the moon is supposedly at its fullest and roundest. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are many different varieties.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the few most important holidays in the Chinese calendar, the others being Chinese New Year and Winter Solstice, and is a legal holiday in several countries. Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date. Traditionally on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomelos under the moon together. Accompanying the celebration, there are additional cultural or regional customs, such as:
Putting pomelo rinds on one's head
Carrying brightly lit lanterns, lighting lanterns on towers, floating sky lanterns
Burning incense in reverence to deities including Chang'e (嫦娥)
Planting Mid-Autumn trees
Collecting dandelion leaves and distributing them evenly among family members
Fire Dragon Dances
Shops selling mooncakes before the festival often display pictures of Chang'e floating to the moon.
