Most Traditional mooncakes are embossed with Chinese characters for ‘togetherness’ or ‘harmony’.

SM City Manila recently celebrated the Mooncake Festival with photo exhibits, movies, and cultural performances. A joint project with the Chinese Embassy, it featured a giant mooncake centerpiece at the mall’s Atrium.

The Mid-Autumn festival, popularly known as the Mooncake Festival, is usually celebrated by the Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese and Vietnamese. The day of the festival occurs on the 15th day of the 8th Lunar month, sometime between the second week of September and the second week of October to celebrate the Mid-Autumn harvest moon.

Traditionally, people hold ceremonies and worship the moon during the festival. They send round mooncakes to their relatives as gifts in expression of their best wishes. During the night, everyone looks up at the full silver moon and go sightseeing on lakes to celebrate the festival.

Many Asian countries celebrate the festival as a day of family reunions like the western Thanksgiving tradition. Children stay up to past midnight parading multi-colored lanterns on the streets while they moon-gaze to the brightest moon of the year. Red food like lobster, salmon, apple, pomegranates, roasted peanuts, pomelo, chestnuts, and mooncakes are served for good luck.

Chiang Kai Shek College students perform a Chinese cultural dance.

Chiang Kai Shek College students also celebrated the festival at the Mall with a series of demonstrations. They shared their mooncake making skills with their special Mooncakes Making exhibition. They also performed a Chinese Cultural Dance and Wushu Skills Demonstrations.

The Beautiful China exhibit by the Center of International Cultural Exchange of the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China was also a big hit among shoppers. Beautiful China is a shared vision of the Chinese people for a better life. It lies in both the reality and people’s dreams, in both the endowments of nature and the creations of humanity. It needs to be inherited, created, cherished and preserved and will remain a solemn commitment and call for action to both the Chinese people and the Chinese government.

This exhibit highlights the constant efforts of the Chinese government and people in building a well off and well- cultured nation, as well as their efforts to incorporate their respect for nature and eco-friendly consciousness in all perspectives of its national development.

SM Cinema at SM City Manila also showcased the Chinese Film Festival during the Mooncake festival.