Mid-Autumn Festival 2020 titled “The Glittering Full Moon” at Thăng Long Imperial Citadel

Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as Children’s Festival, takes place on the full moon of the eighth lunar month of the year, when the moon is brightest and roundest. This is the time when the weather is cool and the crops are ready for harvest. Vietnamese people organize festivals, where they sing and enjoy themselves to the full, to pray for bumper crops. From the Ly Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival was made an important festival of the country. The king organized the festival which featured ancestor worship, boat racing, water puppet show, and land-based puppetry. In the Tran Dynasty, the noblemen drank wine, recited poems, and strolled around to admire the scenery. During the Le – Trinh Period, the Lord Palace was brilliantly decorated with sophisticated and splendid lanterns.

For the commoners, it was customary to make offerings to their ancestors during the day, and erect a moon-party platform in the evening. The Mid-Autumn Festival platform, with the paper doctoral laureate placed at its centre, expresses the wish that the children and grandchildren of the family would perform well academically and succeed. Together with the paper doctoral laureate are moon-shaped cakes, shrimp-shaped cakes, fish-shaped cakes which are made from colorfully dyed flour and fruit, including grapefruit, young rice, persimmon, custard apple, and banana. The traditional mid-autumn platform also has typical autumn products such as fish salad, snail rolls enjoyed with lotus wine. On Mid-Autumn Festival, children are given various kinds of star lanterns, spinner lanterns, rabbit lanterns, carousel lanterns and Mid-Autumn toys by adults. On the full moon night, in the rhythm of drums and under the moon light, children holding colorful Mid-Autumn join a common lantern procession.

In order to promote traditional cultural values, Thang Long-Hanoi Heritage Conservation Center organizes the Mid-Autumn Festival 2020 with the theme “Glittering full moon”. The program not only plans to bring children a meaningful Mid-Autumn Festival with interesting and useful activities, but also makes sure that everyone can relish memories of their own Mid-Autumn Festival in the past.

Coming to the Mid-Autumn Festival 2020 at Thang Long Imperial Citadel, visitors and especially children will have an opportunity to participate in the following useful and interesting activities:

• Visit the exhibition space titled “The glittering full moon” which introduces the colorful Mid-Autumn Festival space with traditional Mid-Autumn lanterns. The exhibition is made possible with the valuable advice from Researcher Trinh Bach, Artisan Pham Thi Nguyet Anh who preserves the art of making fruits with flour and Dong Xuan mascots, Artisan Dang Van Hau who helps restore the mascots from Pho Khach, Phu Xuyen, etc.).
• Watch lion dances.
• Try making moon cakes, making some traditional toys such as paper lanterns, star lanterns, monk lanterns, rabbit lanterns, papier-mâché masks, etc.
• Join various games such as the super cute super-big goblins set, the swing, and the slide, etc.
• Visit the Mid-Autumn Festival stall: Star lantern, rabbit lantern, spinner lantern, papier-mâché masks, metal boats, dough figurines, etc.

You can also view the exhibition “Sparkling Full Moon” in online format at the following address: trungbayonline.hoangthanhthanglong.vn.

Time: From 8h30 – 16h30, on 26 – 27 September 2020 (Saturday, Sunday)

Besides, the Centre also organizes a number of special experiential activities to serve the visiting public at 15:30 on 19 September 2020 (Saturday). These events will be covered in the news by media agencies.

• Explore the art of making traditional Mid-Autumn lanterns by Artisan Nguyen Van Quyen, the art of trimming fruits, and making fruits with flour and Dong Xuan mascots by Artisan Pham Thi Nguyet Anh, or restoring the mascots of Pho Khach, Phu Xuyen by Artisan Dang Van Hau.
• Listen to Historian Le Van Lan talking from a cultural and historical perspective about the celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Mid-Autumn Lantern Festival of the Le-Trinh period.
• Flow lanterns along the ancient river at 18 Hoang Dieu Archaeological Site.