Mid-Autumn FestivalGlobal Spread

The United States is one of the countries with the world’s largest Chinese immigrant populations. Although the Mid-Autumn Festival is not a federal public holiday, in cities with substantial Chinese communities—including New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia—it has become an important event on the urban cultural calendar.

San Francisco: The 35th Mid-Autumn Autumn Moon Festival. On September 27–28, 2025, San Francisco Chinatown’s 35th Mid-Autumn street fair opened with great fanfare. People came from near and far to buy mooncakes and festival goods and to enjoy Chinese song and dance, dragon dances, and lion dances. San Francisco Chinatown’s Mid-Autumn street fair is one of the oldest and largest Mid-Autumn celebrations in the United States and has been held continuously for more than three decades.

Philadelphia: Community organizations and multicultural participation. Philadelphia Chinatown’s 2025 Mid-Autumn Festival celebration was organized by two nonprofit organizations, PCDC (Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation) and AAU (Asian Americans United), drawing large numbers of Asian Americans as well as residents from many other ethnic communities. One of the most memorable moments came when a local American performer sang 《月亮代表我的心》 in Chinese, with remarkably standard pronunciation. The event also featured calligraphy, art displays, and inflatable play structures for children. Philadelphia’s Mid-Autumn celebration has now reached its 30th edition.

Boston: Mid-Autumn Lantern Festival. Boston Chinatown held its Mid-Autumn Lantern Festival on September 13, 2025. Handmade lanterns filled the streets of Chinatown, creating an exceptionally vivid festive atmosphere. A wide range of cultural performances added to the celebration and attracted large numbers of local residents.

New York: A Mid-Autumn celebration attended by the mayor. During the 2025 Mid-Autumn Festival, New York City Mayor Eric Adams specially invited members of the Chinese community to a Mid-Autumn celebration, where they shared mooncakes together. Mid-Autumn activities in New York Chinatown also included celebrations organized by local businesses and tastings of low-sugar mooncakes, offering healthier ways to mark the festival.

One Chinese resident in the United States exclaimed: “Celebrating Mid-Autumn in America somehow felt like celebrating Chinese New Year! The Chinatown festivities really hit me emotionally… Red lanterns covered the entire street, and even the air smelled of sugar-roasted chestnuts and roast duck… I may physically be in America, but at that moment I truly felt, ‘where the heart finds peace, there is home’—此心安处是吾乡.”

Canada’s Mid-Autumn celebrations are equally vibrant and diverse. From large night markets to community events honoring the elderly, from cultural exchanges in public libraries to folk performances in schools, together they form a richly varied portrait of the festival.

Toronto: “The Moon Is Shared Across the World” Mid-Autumn Night Market. During the 2025 Mid-Autumn Festival, the Chinese Consulate General in Toronto supported a series of events under the theme “天涯共此时—中秋节”, expressing the poetic idea that people separated by great distances may still share the same moment beneath the same moon. The 2025 Mid-Autumn Night Market in Mississauga was a centerpiece of the series. Lasting three days and centered on the traditional Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, the night market created a joyful festive atmosphere through food, lanterns, and cultural performances, while building a bridge for friendship and mutual understanding between the peoples of China and Canada. Organizers expected 30,000 visitors.

The series also included a complete performance of the Peking opera 《白蛇传》 (The Legend of the White Snake) under the theme “National Opera Celebrates Mid-Autumn · The Moon Is Shared Across the World,” as well as the “Bank of China Night · The Moon Is Shared Across the World” concert.

Montreal: An eight-hour celebration of Mid-Autumn culture. In October 2025, Montreal hosted a Mid-Autumn cultural celebration themed “明月寄情·共庆中秋”, evoking the sending of affection through the bright moon and the shared celebration of Mid-Autumn. The entire program lasted eight hours, featuring songs, dance, traditional opera, Chinese instrumental music, and other performances.

Vancouver: Mid-Autumn folk culture showcase. On October 4, 2025, Vancouver United Chinese School held a large-scale “Mid-Autumn Folk Culture Showcase” at Moscrop Secondary School in Burnaby, attracting nearly 400 teachers and students from across the school.

Calgary: A dual expression through community associations and the public library. Calgary’s Mid-Autumn celebrations were especially varied. On September 27, the long-established Calgary Chiu Chow Association took the lead in organizing a Mid-Autumn gathering honoring the elderly, combining the celebration of the festival with the traditional Chinese virtues of respecting and caring for older generations. More than one hundred community members of Chaozhou origin gathered together.

On October 3, the Calgary Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai Friendship Association held a Mid-Autumn celebration. With an impromptu accordion accompaniment by an instructor from the Jasmine Choir, singing and laughter filled the venue.

On October 5, Calgary’s New Central Library hosted a Mid-Autumn Youth Cultural Exchange, ranging from the making of snow-skin mooncakes, a soft, uncooked style of mooncake with a pale glutinous-rice-flour exterior, to calligraphy experiences and Chinese traditional instrumental music performed throughout the event. The activities attracted large numbers of people from different ethnic backgrounds. Music is a language without borders: the ensemble performed festive traditional Chinese pieces such as 《花好月圆》, whose title evokes “blossoming flowers beneath a full moon” and, by extension, happiness and completeness. Whatever their background, visitors entering the venue could immediately sense the joyful atmosphere of Mid-Autumn and its spirit of reunion.

That evening, the nearly century-old Calgary 至孝笃亲公所 held a grand Mid-Autumn banquet honoring the elderly. Its chairman, Chen Zhiqiang, said: “At the heart of Mid-Autumn is ‘reunion,’ while the guiding principle of our association is ‘filial piety.’ When the moon in the sky becomes full, families on earth should come together. That, in itself, is the finest expression of ‘filial piety.’”

On October 5, 2025, London Chinatown held a Mid-Autumn Festival celebration organized by the London Chinatown Chinese Association. Its chairman, Deng Zhuting, said that since its establishment, the association had remained committed to promoting cultural exchange between China and the United Kingdom and fostering harmony within the community. By organizing a Mid-Autumn celebration, it hoped that overseas Chinese could experience the warmth of home, the cohesion of community, and the beauty of multicultural coexistence even while living abroad.

At the event, local residents tried traditional Chinese performance arts including kuaiban (快板), a rhythmic storytelling form performed with bamboo clappers, while performers dressed in Mongolian ethnic attire also took to the stage. People gathered in London Chinatown to watch the Mid-Autumn festivities and experience the atmosphere of the festival far from its homeland.

Germany is one of the European countries with the richest range of Mid-Autumn activities.

Berlin’s Gardens of the World: Tens of thousands celebrate Mid-Autumn together. On September 27, 2025, the annual Mid-Autumn celebration was held at Berlin’s Gardens of the World, where tens of thousands of German residents experienced the festival’s atmosphere of reunion amid laughter and festivity. Since the completion of its Chinese Garden, “得月园”, in 2000, the Gardens of the World has held Mid-Autumn celebrations every year.

Berlin Mid-Autumn musical exchange. The Chinese Embassy in Germany and several German friendship organizations held a Mid-Autumn musical exchange in Berlin. German resident Isabella Hansen said: “I think it [the Mid-Autumn Festival] is a wonderful family gathering—a time to celebrate autumn together, enjoy delicious food together, and gaze romantically at the moon.”

German resident Peter Krotzberg said: “The Mid-Autumn Festival lives up to its name because the moon is full. Looking at the moon, you feel peaceful and feel at home, because it returns to an ancient tradition: wishing that everything goes well throughout the year, that the harvest is abundant, and that everyone remains healthy.”

The Chinese Cultural Center in Berlin also held a “天涯共此时” Mid-Autumn Concert, bringing together more than 180 guests from Chinese and German political, cultural, academic, and other circles, as well as representatives of cultural institutions from several countries based in Germany. German university student Phil Milenz said: “Holding this kind of event in Germany and having the opportunity to show Chinese culture to German audiences is very important, because culture can communicate with and understand other cultures through things such as music.”

Eysach Palace: Mid-Autumn inside a castle. On October 11, 2025, a “Mid-Autumn Celebration” jointly organized by the Eysach Palace Museum, the Confucius Institute Nuremberg-Erlangen, and the Bayreuth Chinese Cultural Association was held at Eysach Palace in Bavaria. As Mid-Autumn entered a German castle, Eastern and Western cultures met and mingled within its historic architecture.

Frankfurt Book Fair: A refined Mid-Autumn literary gathering. On October 17, 2025, the event “天涯共此时——中秋书香雅集”, organized by the China National Tourist Office in Frankfurt, was held at the Frankfurt Book Fair, bringing the atmosphere of Mid-Autumn into a gathering shaped by books and literary culture.

Lyon: A Mid-Autumn chapter in the China-France Theatre Culture Festival. In early October 2025, Lyon deepened its character as a World Heritage city through a cross-disciplinary dialogue with traditional arts. On October 6, a team of Chinese artists visited Lycée Saint-Exupéry in Lyon, where nearly one hundred French secondary-school students participated in a Jinju (晋剧) masterclass, introducing them to the traditional opera of Shanxi, as well as an online cultural course presented by the Shanxi Museum.

On October 7, the artists visited the New Franco-Chinese Institute, where its vice president recounted the history of the first 400 Chinese youths who traveled to France to study in 1921. That evening, inside the UNESCO World Heritage Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, Chinese and Western music intertwined with the vocal traditions of Jinju.

These few days of cultural activities were not merely artistic performances; they also built a bridge of understanding and cooperation between China and France, and more broadly between China and Europe. As Chinese Consul General in Lyon Yu Jiang stated: “The flourishing of civilizations and the progress of humanity are inseparable from exchange and mutual learning among civilizations.”

Paris: The Vietnamese community’s “Mid-Autumn Festival—Night of the Full Moon.” On October 5, 2025, the Union Générale des Vietnamiens de France and several community organizations jointly held a “Mid-Autumn Festival—Night of the Full Moon” event at the Vietnamese Cultural Center in Paris’s 13th arrondissement, attracting hundreds of young people, parents, and international friends.

The “Mid-Autumn Peace Mooncake Charity Sale,” organized by the Stockholm Association of Buddha’s Light International, has now been held in Sweden for three consecutive years. Taking the Mid-Autumn Festival as an occasion, the event allows members of the Fo Guang community to celebrate reunion in a meaningful way while also raising funds for the construction of temples in Europe. The Copenhagen Association of Buddha’s Light International also traveled to Sweden to participate in the charity sale, demonstrating the strength of cross-border cooperation within the Fo Guang community.

Southeast Asia has one of the world’s largest concentrations of overseas Chinese communities. Here, the Mid-Autumn Festival has not only preserved Chinese traditions in relatively complete form, but has also developed distinctive local expressions through its interaction with surrounding cultures.

Singapore: A citywide “reunion celebration.” The Mid-Autumn atmosphere is especially vibrant in Singapore. Celebrations retain traditional activities such as carrying lanterns, solving lantern riddles, and eating mooncakes, while also incorporating innovative elements including community festivities, creative lantern installations, and modern markets. For families, the festival offers an opportunity to visit relatives and friends and spend time with older generations; for younger people, it has also become a lively occasion for dates and outings, trying new mooncake flavors, and exploring night markets.

Lantern viewing and festival outings are among the most popular activities during Mid-Autumn, and Chinatown is one of Singapore’s liveliest destinations each year. Mid-Autumn decorations generally extend from New Bridge Road to Upper Cross Street, with large themed installations, street performances, and markets appearing during the festive period. Organizers arrange annual group lantern processions and stage programs, inviting community residents to take part in activities combining tradition with creativity.

Beyond Chinatown, Gardens by the Bay, Jurong Lake Gardens, and other locations have in recent years transformed Mid-Autumn celebrations into large-scale exhibitions. In 2025, the Jurong Lake Gardens Mid-Autumn lantern festival began on September 27 and ran for 16 consecutive days, displaying as many as 1,200 lanterns. Eye-catching themed lantern series inspired by 《西游记》 (Journey to the West) recreated classic episodes and settings including Flaming Mountain and the Cave of Silken Web.

Singapore’s mooncake market embraces both tradition and continual innovation: from classic salted egg-yolk lotus-seed-paste mooncakes and five-nut mooncakes (五仁月饼) to snow-skin varieties, and more recent popular flavors such as durian, taro, and Peranakan-inspired mooncakes. In Singapore, Mid-Autumn is not simply a Chinese festival; it increasingly resembles a citywide “reunion celebration”, connecting families, neighborhoods, businesses, and visitors in different ways.

Malaysia: From lantern processions to carnival-style celebrations. Malaysian Chinese have long observed the custom of sharing a reunion dinner during the Mid-Autumn Festival, while also celebrating by drinking tea and enjoying mooncakes. During the festive period, local associations, schools, villages, and even temples organize a variety of activities, including community fairs, moonlight gatherings, lantern street processions, and blessing ceremonies.

In 2025, Jonker Street in Malacca once again introduced new approaches, bringing together the strengths of various local civic groups and working with the Malacca state government to organize Mid-Autumn festivities. Mooncake-making sessions were also provided for residents and visitors to experience firsthand.

As times have changed, Malaysian Chinese celebrations have evolved from an earlier focus on carrying lanterns, drinking tea, and eating mooncakes into large-scale carnival-style festivities incorporating markets, game stations, and major cultural performances. In Singapore and Malaysia, where Chinese immigrant communities are substantial, the atmosphere of Mid-Autumn most closely resembles that of Chinese society. People worship the Moon Goddess (拜月娘), admire the moon, share mooncakes, and organize large lantern festivals. In recent years, cities such as Singapore and George Town, Penang, have held lantern displays, markets, and performances that attract people of different ethnic groups, symbolizing reunion and integration within multicultural societies.

Vietnam: Mid-Autumn is also a children’s festival. In Vietnam, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also known as a children’s festival, and parents prepare snacks and lanterns for their children. Children carry lanterns through markets, watch dragon and lion dances, and walk along streets decorated with brightly colored lanterns, forming beautiful “lantern streets.” Children often carry distinctive five-pointed star lanterns.

From October 3 to 6, 2025, Hội An Ancient Town in Da Nang held four days of Mid-Autumn festivities, including lantern displays, lion dances, lantern processions, and multiple outdoor art performances. The year 2025 was the “China-Vietnam Year of People-to-People Exchanges,” during which the series “彩云追月·睦邻情深” brought Mid-Autumn culture into Vietnam. Nguyễn Trí Mẫn, an inheritor of the craft of making Tang-style confectionery (唐菓子), said that for people in both China and Vietnam, eating mooncakes and pastries is an indispensable Mid-Autumn custom.

Thailand: The distinctive tradition of the “Moon-Praying Festival.” In Thailand, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also called the “Moon-Praying Festival” (祈月节). Families set up square tables in their homes, while Chinese communities in Thailand preserve the tradition of paying reverence to the Moon Goddess and praying for good fortune.

In South Korea, the Mid-Autumn Festival is known as Chuseok (秋夕) and, alongside the Lunar New Year, is one of the country’s most important traditional festivals. In 2025, the Chuseok holiday ran from October 5 to 8. Many Koreans return to their hometowns during Chuseok to spend the holiday with relatives and friends, sharing both the fruits of the harvest and feelings of longing for one another.

Unlike in China, the representative food of Korean Chuseok is not the mooncake but songpyeon, a half-moon-shaped rice cake made from newly harvested rice. Ancestral rites are a central ritual of Chuseok, although in recent years they have become increasingly simplified. A survey by South Korea’s Rural Development Administration showed that 62.5% of respondents said they did not plan to conduct ancestral rites during Chuseok; among families that continued the tradition, 92% had simplified the ritual.

In terms of gift preferences, cash gifts (41.6%) were the most popular Chuseok present, followed by fruit (19.6%) and health foods (16.2%). Koreans also maintain a number of traditional activities: men take part in wrestling contests or bullfighting, women put on their favorite clothes and gather to sing and dance, while children have games of their own.

During Chuseok, Seoul hosts numerous cultural activities, including the “Seoul Car-Free Jamsu Bridge Walking Festival” from September 27 to October 19 and the “Seoul Palace Cultural Festival” from October 8 to 12.

After the Mid-Autumn Festival was introduced to Japan from China, it gradually developed distinctive forms of celebration. In Japan, the festival is known as Jūgoya (十五夜, “the Fifteenth Night”) or Imo Meigetsu (芋名月, “the Taro Harvest Moon”), with moon viewing and gratitude toward nature at its heart.

Japanese Mid-Autumn customs differ from those in China. Because autumn is the harvest season for taro and other crops, on Jūgoya people prepare 15 rice dumplings arranged in a tower, together with offerings such as pampas grass, taro, beans, and sacred sake (神酒). These are placed in the center of a courtyard or somewhere with a clear view of the moon, in gratitude to the deities for protecting the harvest.

Japan’s tsukimi (月見), or moon-viewing culture, has a long history. Aristocrats once took boats onto lakes beneath the Mid-Autumn moon, composing poetry and enjoying themselves. For farmers among the common people, Mid-Autumn was likewise an important occasion to celebrate the agricultural harvest and give thanks for divine blessings. Kyoto’s moon-viewing gatherings consist of Shinto rituals followed by folk songs, dance, and gagaku, Japan’s ancient court music.

Japan also developed the custom of viewing the moon three times in a year. Modern Japan has become even more inventive—from traditional tsukimi dango, moon-viewing rice dumplings, to the “Tsukimi Burger,” Jūgoya preserves the elegance of tradition while continually generating new ways to celebrate.

Sydney: The Mid-Autumn Cultural Festival enters a mainstream commercial district. The 2025 Mid-Autumn Cultural Festival was held in Chatswood, on Sydney’s North Shore. Themed “A Full Moon, People Reunited—Celebrating Mid-Autumn Together,” the festival brought together music, dance, food, traditional arts, and a cultural market. Lion dances, Sichuan opera face-changing, Hanfu fashion shows, and other performances drew large numbers of Sydney residents. Chinese Consul General in Sydney Wang Yu, Australian federal senator Paul Scarr, New South Wales parliamentarian Tim James, and others attended the opening ceremony.

Sydney Chinatown: Lion dancers distribute mooncakes. On October 6, 2025, a lion dance performance was held inside a shopping center in Sydney Chinatown, where mooncakes were distributed to local residents in celebration of the festival. The energetic lion dance and randomly distributed mooncakes prompted repeated applause and cheers from the crowd.

Brisbane: The Hakka association honors the elderly at Mid-Autumn. On October 5, the Queensland Hakka Association held its “2025 General Meeting and Celebration of the Double Ninth Festival Honoring the Elderly and the Mid-Autumn Festival” in southern Brisbane.

Li Fen, chair of the New Zealand Huaxia Multicultural Arts Exchange Center, said that as members of overseas Chinese communities, they were witnessing outstanding traditional Chinese culture take root and flourish in foreign lands. Whenever she saw people of different skin colors and languages participating together in Mid-Autumn activities and experiencing the warmth of Mid-Autumn reunion, she felt a deep sense of cultural confidence and national pride.