If you’ve seen signs for the Hong Kong Mid-Autumn Festival, Lantern Festival and Moon Cake Festival, let us wipe away your confusion: they are in fact one and the same.
Hong Kong’s Mid-Autumn Festival, as it is popularly known in the city, is, aside from Chinese New Year, Hong Kong’s biggest festival.
The Mid-Autumn festival sees the city draped in colourful ribbons and decorated with elaborate displays of lanterns, while restaurants will be serving up a variety of festival mooncakes, all this, as well as parades, dragon dances and celebrations around the city.
The date for the festival is set by the autumn equinox, when the moon is at its brightest and as with most Hong Kong festivals is attached the to the lunar cycle. Although festivities take place in the days around the festival, the main festival day is set for September 12th in 2011.
Legend Behind the Festival
What really turned the festival into the crowd-pleaser it is today was a man named Liu Bowen. In a plot straight out of Hollywood, Liu was part of 14th century rebel movement aimed at kicking China’s mongol overlords back over the border.
Liu came up with the ingenious plan to organize the uprising by concealing the message “Rise against the Tartars on the 15th day of the eighth moon, now the main day for the festival, inside moon cakes. The Mongols didn’t eat moon cakes, so they would never know.
The rebellion was a success and moon cakes and the festival have been a firm fixture on the lunar calendar ever since.
In recent years, Mooncake makers have been getting creative with their fillings, from Haagen Dazs to green tea check our our Top Eight Mooncake Flavours.
What’s On
Expect lantern festivals and fire dragon dances in one of Hong Kong's most colorful and noisiest festivals. Read our Mid Autumn Festival Events guide for a blow by blow on the city's best events.
