Mid-Autumn Festival for Children, Mid-Autumn Festival for Adults

Perhaps, Mid-Autumn Festival is the time of year that both adults and children look forward to. Since ancient times, Mid-Autumn Festival has had a beautiful and awaited meaning...

Mid-Autumn Festival is a time of year that both adults and children look forward to. (Photo: Luu Dinh Long)

It is also an occasion to show gratitude to nature and ancestors who have blessed people with prosperity and a wish for a bountiful harvest in the following season.

For people, Mid-Autumn Festival is also a way to reward themselves after hard working days, enjoying the joy of seeing the fruits of their labor. Researchers believe that Vietnamese people have had the Autumn Full Moon Festival since ancient times, depicted on the surface of the Ngoc Lu Bronze Drum.

In the book Vietnamese customs, Phan Ke Binh wrote: “In the 19th century, Vietnamese people prepared offerings to their ancestors during the day and set up offerings to enjoy the moon at night. The first offering was moon cakes and many kinds of cakes and fruits, dyed in bright colors, green, red, white and yellow. Girls in the city competed with each other in their skills, carving papaya into flowers, molding dough into shrimps, whales...”. Thus, it can be said that Mid-Autumn Festival - the joyful season of family reunion - was a special cultural expression of Vietnamese people expressing their gratitude and spirit towards the divine.

Nowadays, Mid-Autumn Festival is known as a festival for children. It can be seen that all kinds of cakes, lanterns sold on this occasion are aimed at children. I still cannot forget the Mid-Autumn Festivals of my childhood. At that time, in my hometown, there were no moon cakes but there were other types of cakes and candies such as sesame candy, pig ear cakes, peanut candy... These were also extremely attractive dishes for us in the nineties. Really, only on Mid-Autumn Festival could we receive such a variety of cakes as gifts.

Of course, before that, the uncles and aunts in the Mid-Autumn Festival organizing committee in the countryside will go from house to house to collect money from the fund to buy candy for the children. Families with many children will contribute 2-3kg of paddy or rice, families with fewer children will contribute 1kg, depending on their generosity. That amount of paddy or rice will be sold by the uncles and aunts in the organizing committee, plus funds from the commune will be "poured" to each village, then buy candy and divide it equally into small bags. The Mid-Autumn Festival will be held on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month at the village hall. The village youth union will let the children play games, sing, tug of war... before officially receiving the gifts.

It was a joyful and bustling occasion in the whole village because children under 16 years old received gifts and cakes. As for me, my mother made me a star-shaped lantern to go out in the small village. Some friends had their parents make lanterns from soft drink cans, which looked simple but really lovely.

Nowadays, children are better taken care of because of more material things. Candy is no longer a rare item like in my time - the 8x generation, so people do not look forward to eating candy during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Now, moon cakes are also everywhere, from urban to rural areas, even from the end of June to the beginning of July of the lunar calendar, many moon cake shops have been set up everywhere. Therefore, the flavor of Mid-Autumn Festival is probably not as strong as before in the sense of anticipation and excitement.

Of course, somewhere there are still poor children who lack moon cakes, dreaming of having beautiful lanterns in the August moon season. Listening to this voice of life, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also the season of love, the season of sharing. There are more and more programs for poor and disadvantaged children by individuals and organizations with warm names such as "Happy Mid-Autumn Festival", "Moon Season of Love", "Sharing Mid-Autumn Festival"...

The writer has had many opportunities to accompany volunteer groups, charity groups of pagodas, young people... to visit children in remote areas during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Moon cakes and lanterns brought from the city were received with gratitude by the children. Only when you go can you fully feel that Mid-Autumn Festival is also an opportunity to open your heart and sharing is always necessary. Vietnamese people always have such a humane tradition of "the healthy leaves cover the torn leaves".

In fact, this is also an occasion for adults to rejoice and have fun with children. The streets selling Mid-Autumn lanterns are sought out by young people to take pictures and post on social networks with cheerful smiles. The peaceful and serene atmosphere is evident from the Mid-Autumn season in every street corner, every shop decorated specifically for this occasion. Children are also given the privilege of being taken for a walk, listening to the stories of Hang and Cuoi to nurture their imagination, living together in a fairy tale atmosphere.

Ignoring the variations of the Mid-Autumn Festival, this can be said to be a season of joy, a season of jubilation, a season to give each other love. It can be family affection, an opportunity to connect with relatives and more broadly, it is human love with empathy for poor children somewhere in Vietnam.

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