Every year, the Mid-Autumn Festival is celebrated in various South and East Asian countries, including China, Vietnam, Japan, Korea, and more. It is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month according to the lunar calendar, which is around mid-September to early October. The Mid-Autumn Festival celebrates the successful autumn harvest and time with family.

This year, the Mid-Autumn Festival was celebrated on October 6th. At NDB, the event was held on Thursday, October 16, during lunch. During the event, the Global Connection Club and the Coalition of DEIB set tables in the Farther Downey Garden and gave out mooncakes. This soon attracted the students having lunch, and all the mooncakes were gone within five minutes.

The Global Connection Club president, Abby Li, shared her purpose and experience in planning the event, “We wanted to hold this event so more people could learn about Asian culture and traditions. We have a diverse community in NDB, so we wanted to help everyone learn from each other and appreciate different cultures.”

She emphasized the importance of embracing diversity. Holding events like this can attract students to take a closer look and spark their curiosity to learn more about the traditional festivals.

In the future, Li said that the club would hold more events like this, “We will have more celebrations in the future to celebrate different cultures in different areas, like Lunar New Year.”

The Mid-Autumn festival is important as it is a major family reunion holiday where loved ones get to gather and spend time together. Even though many have busy schedules, it is important to spend time with friends and family and appreciate one another. Activities vary for each country, such as in China where children parade with colorful lanterns whereas in Japan people eat rice dumplings called dango while looking at the moon. Although different countries celebrate it in their own ways, the central theme of family is apparent.