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- Mid-Autumn Festival: Mooncakes, lanterns and so much more</p>
<p>Maggie Hiufu Wong, CNNOctober 6, 2025 at 4:15 AM</p>
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<p>Members of a fire dragon dance team spin balls of joss sticks in Hong Kong. - Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images</p>
<p>It's not an exaggeration to call Mid-Autumn Festival the world's largest full moon party. Even Labubu, the wildly popular Pop Mart toy, has been known to celebrate the event.</p>
<p>Falling on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, the festival is marked primarily across East and Southeast Asia as a night for families to gather, enjoy the harvest, light lanterns and admire what's believed to be the roundest moon of the year.</p>
<p>In 2025, the Mid-Autumn Festival, or the Moon Festival, is celebrated on October 6. You can count on plenty of mooncakes, pomelos and more moon-connected essentials as part of traditions marking the ancient holiday.</p>
<p>Here's what you about the festival and a few tips on how to join the fun.</p>
<p>What is the Mid-Autumn Festival?</p>
<p>Lanterns are an important part of all Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations. - Bertha Wang/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock</p>
<p>Mid-Autumn Festival became an official celebration in China during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) but there isn't one single answer to the question of when and how the annual event began.</p>
<p>Many believe the fete was first mentioned in the "Book of Rites," a Confucius classic on bureaucracy and rituals written more than 2,400 years ago.</p>
<p>It was described as a day for emperors to celebrate the year's harvest by giving offerings to the moon and hosting a great feast.</p>
<p>Today, the Mid-Autumn Festival is an incredibly important family gathering — it's when "people and the moon reunite to form a full circle," as an old saying goes.</p>
<p>Chang'e: The moon festival goddess</p>
<p>The Mid-Authum Festival falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month. - Sipa USA</p>
<p>Like many cultural celebrations, the Mid-Autumn Festival is shrouded in myth. One of the most beloved — and tragic — pieces of folklore tells the story of how a woman named Chang'e became the moon goddess.</p>
<p>According to the legend, after mythological Chinese archer Hou Yi courageously shot down nine surplus suns — leaving only one, in effect protecting the world from being scorched completely — he was given an elixir from heaven as a reward.</p>
<p>Hou Yi's wife Chang'e drank the elixir while protecting it from a greedy apprentice, but became so light that she floated to the moon.</p>
<p>Missing his wife, Hou Yi prepared a feast every year on the day when the moon was at its fullest, hoping to get a glimpse of his wife's shadow.</p>
<p>Just how well known is this story? China's Chang'e lunar modules, part of the country's ambitious space program, were named in honor of the moon goddess. Meanwhile, Yutu (Jade Rabbit) — China's moon rover — was named after a legendary rabbit that was sent to accompany Chang'e to the moon.</p>
<p>Mid-Autumn Festival customs and traditions</p>
<p>People take a ride on boats at dusk to release paper lanterns for good luck during the Mid-Autumn Festival in Hoi An, Vietnam. - Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images</p>
<p>When it comes to celebrating the festival, customs vary throughout Asia.</p>
<p>The Mid-Autumn Festival is considered "children's day" in Vietnam and celebrations include paper lantern fairs and lion dance parades. Meanwhile, in southern China, most people will light a lantern and eat autumn fruits such as pomelo and starfruit.</p>
<p>Some villages in Hong Kong still preserve the tradition of fire dragon dancing through a narrow alley.</p>
<p>In South Korea, the Mid-Autumn Festival (or Chuseok) is one of the nation's most important holidays. Celebrated over three days, South Koreans will sweep ancestors' tombs, wear traditional attire and eat songpyeon, crescent-shaped steamed rice cakes with sweet fillings.</p>
<p>Japanese people, meanwhile, will eat grilled sticky rice balls called tsukimi dango ("moon viewing") while admiring the celestial body.</p>
<p>Celebrations can also be found in Asian communities all over the world, from New York City to Vancouver.</p>
<p>All about mooncakes</p>
<p>Mooncakes are the most famous Mid-Autumn Festival treat. - Zhang Peng/LightRocket/Getty Images</p>
<p>One of the biggest stars of the Mid-Autumn Festival is the mooncake — it's as important to festivities as turkey is to Thanksgiving and latkes are to Hanukkah. In most places in China, the calorific pastry is sliced up and shared like a cake between families and friends.</p>
<p>The most well-known kind of mooncake is made of lotus seed paste, salted egg yolk and lard — Cantonese style — which explains why a palm-sized cake can contain about 1,000 calories.</p>
<p>Nuts, red beans and custards are some other popular ingredients.</p>
<p>In China's Guiyang City, the staff canteen of the Guizhou Provincial People's Hospital unexpectedly topped sales charts at a local supermarket with its decades‑old ham mooncake recipe.</p>
<p>Meanwhile in Xintai, in eastern Shandong province, mooncakes have become a lucrative income for the county. It's reported to have generated 600 million yuan, about $84 million, in mooncake-manufacturing revenue during the festival, accounting for roughly 1% of the county's annual GDP.</p>
<p>Bakery brands have also come up with modern variations — ice cream coated in chocolate, for example — that offer an alternative to those who aren't fond of traditional mooncakes.</p>
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