Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations
By David Yin, Local Journalism Initiative reporter
The community is preparing to celebrate one of the year’s most important cultural holidays, the Mid-Autumn Festival, which takes place on Oct. 6.
This festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese calendar, which correlates to September to early October on the Western calendar.
Typical activities include family dinners, moon worshipping, paper lantern crafts, and eating moon cakes.
Here are some area events to celebrate the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival.
York Regional Police will host its Mid-Autumn Festival on Oct. 4 at the Community Safety Village in Stouffville. The event includes market and food vendors, as well as live performances.
The King Square Shopping Centre will host a free Mid-Autumn Festival event on Oct. 4 from noon to 5 p.m. Visitors can participate in four activities, with each activity providing one of four tickets to play bingo: Taking a family photo while dressed in a traditional Chinese hanfu, answering a Chinese riddle, participating in a duck scavenger hunt, and building Chinese lanterns in exchange for ice cream.
The First Markham Place will host the Mid-Autumn Night’s Dream on Oct. 4. Visitors can enjoy a live performance at the food court at 7:30 p.m., followed by a firework display at the parking lot at 9:15 p.m.
The Togetherness Moon Festival Market takes place at the Markham Wesley Centre on Oct. 4 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. This event will feature lantern riddles, paper fan crafts, over 40 vendor booths, live music performances, 30 free goodie bags, and 200 free welcome packs.
Pacific Mall will host a grand show for its Mid-Autumn Celebration, in partnership with Real Canadian Superstore and Loblaws. It will occur on Oct. 5 from 1 to 3 p.m.
Becky Liang, sales and leasing manager of King Square Shopping Centre, said that the Mid-Autumn Festival is a way for Chinese people to spend time with their families.
“With this traditional Chinese festival, we want the young Chinese generation to get to know the festival and have fun with it,” she said.