The Mid-Autumn Festival (simplified Chinese: 中秋节; traditional Chinese: 中秋節; pinyin: zhōngqiū jié), also known as the Moon Festival or Chinese Lantern Festival or Mooncake Festival or Zhongqiu Festival, is a popular lunar harvest festival celebrated by Chinese and Vietnamese people.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the most important holidays in the Chinese calendar, the others being Spring Festival and Winter Solstice. Accompanying the celebration, there are additional cultural or regional customs, such as:
Eating moon cakes, traditionally consisting primarily of lotus bean paste.
Drinking tea.
Matchmaking. In some parts of China, dances are held for young men and women to find partners. "One by one, young women are encouraged to throw their handkerchiefs to the crowd. The young man who catches and returns the handkerchief has a chance of romance.
Carrying brightly lit lanterns, lighting lanterns on towers, floating sky lanterns.
Burning incense in reverence to deities including Chang'e
Fire Dragon Dances
Solving riddles, usually written on slips of paper and pasted on the lanterns. The riddles are called dengmi in Mandarin Chinese.
Moon rabbit is a traditional icon.
Stories of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Houyi and Chang'e
The Hare or The Jade Rabbit
Ref:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival
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