Moon cakes, lanterns and lion dancing will be featured at Nanaimo’s first annual Mid-Autumn Festival.
The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Cake Festival, started more than 3,000 years ago during the post-harvest moon on the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar. In China, the occasion is observed as a statutory holiday that people celebrate by lighting lanterns, eating moon cakes and spending the time with family and friends.
Jerry Hong, chairperson of the Nanaimo Chinese Cultural Society, compared it to Thanksgiving and Diwali.
“It’s about coming together,” Hong said. “The Mid-Autumn Festival is about celebrating with friends and family. What we want to do is have this event as a welcome to all our friends and family, no matter who you are, come to our event. That’s what the tradition usually is … having as many people celebrate with you. That’s why we’re doing it, to bring everyone together.”
Starting at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 14, different parts of Maffeo Sutton Park will be sectioned into different activities.
In one area, there will be paper lanterns that attendees can decorate so that they can be strung up in the trees. In other areas, Japanese and traditional Chinese lanterns will be hung. People can also create water lanterns which can be decorated before being released into the lagoon with people’s wishes inside.
“The traditional Chinese method is the floating [sky] lanterns,” Hong said. “With fire and everything else in them, and not knowing where they’ll go and the risks, we didn’t want to do it. As much as we wanted the floating sky lanterns, we opted for the water lantern.”
On stage, the event will begin with a Chinese traditional lion dance, and include various other performances such as Chinese opera, fan dancing and kung fu. Elsewhere, people can have their name written in traditional Chinese calligraphy.
“Our society has always talked about [doing the festival]. We didn’t have the manpower and COVID hit and everything else, and after that, we established ourselves that we were capable of this and wanted to do it. This is a stepping stone. We did Lunar New Year and we wanted another signature event.”
The festival is based around the legend of Chang’e, the Chinese moon goddess. The legend states that a long time ago, 10 suns scorched the Earth. In order to save the planet, an archer named Hou Yi shot down nine of them, and for his great deed was granted an elixir of immortality by the Heavenly Queen Mother. The elixir was left in the care of his wife, Chang'e, who in time, was forced to drink it for herself during an attempt by Hou Yi's apprentice to steal it. Upon drinking it, Chang'e ascended to the moon where she resided in godhood, but at the cost of being forever separated from her love, Hou Yi. In honour of his wife, Hou Yi began the festival.
The celebration will be Hong’s daughter Mila’s first Mid-Autumn Festival. The five-year-old said she was most looking forward to decorating a lantern. For her design, she plans to draw “fish, boats and the moon” as well as stars and the water.
While the actual day for the Mid-Autumn Festival is Sept. 17 this year, Hong said it made more sense to hold the event on the weekend.
"This will be recurring and next year we're planning on a two-day event, a lot bigger," he said. "Our plans for next year is we're hoping to get sponsors for fireworks … Having not just paper lanterns, but lanterns in general. Rabbits, bunnies, houses – doing what the Silly Boat [Regatta] has done, building your lantern on site."
The Mid-Autumn Festival is a collaboration between the Nanaimo Chinese Cultural Society and Nanaimo Masonic Lodge.
