BVU students host “Moon Festival”

Photo+by+Alyssa+Donnelly

Alyssa Donnelly

Photo by Alyssa Donnelly

Alyssa Donnelly, Assistant Arts & Life Editor

On October 4, Buena Vista University (BVU) students hosted an ACES event in celebration of the Chinese tradition, “Moon Festival.”

Moon Festival is a harvest tradition celebrated in China and Vietnam. In China, Moon Festival is believed to be the second most important festival in China after the ‘Chinese New Year’ holiday. The Moon Festival celebrates the importance of praying for a good harvest, and spending time with family and friends.

This cultural ACES event helped students to better understand other early traditions that are important to diverse students on campus. Two students hosted the event, along with teaching and celebrating their culture beside their peers. Hostesses of the event were junior business major Cris Xun, and sophomore political science major Matt Huisenga.

Huisenga had a great comparison to the meaning of Moon Festival:

“Moon Festival is a bit like Thanksgiving; a lot of families coming together, and having a reunion. Being all together enjoying one another, and enjoying the time of the year,” said Huisenga.

With how diverse our BVU campus is, everyone celebrates their holidays quite differently. As for Xun, she explains how the festival is celebrated within her own family:

“From my family we don’t have the harvest farm life, but with our family we celebrate the year. It’s a happy season. The moon festival has more developed as just a festival meaning like togetherness and reunion,” said Xun.

During the festival, “mooncakes” are presented as a traditional food served as an offering to the moon during harvest time. It symbolizes completeness and togetherness, as a whole moon symbolizes the parallel within family.

“The mooncakes are a symbol of Moon Festival, like every time we see the mooncakes before moon festival we say, ‘It’s not moon festival yet’, like people would do if they saw you eating turkey before Thanksgiving,” said Xun.

For Xun and her family, Moon Festival has different time frames, and celebration days.

“We usually have a couples days off to rest and then come together to celebrate, but I am not sure about other countries, but in the Asian country we celebrate it one day, with a few days off before,” said Xun.

If you missed out on this year’s Moon Festival don’t be alarmed, stick around for next Moon Festival. If you have any questions about the moon festival contact Matt at [email protected], and Cris at [email protected].