By: Emma Gonzalez
Contributor
With autumn coming around, popular traditions emerge such as pumpkin spice, scary movies and apple picking, but it is also a good time to see how other cultures celebrate the season.
Around 30 Students at were able to decorate lanterns, eat moon cakes, and try mocktails while learning about the “Mid-Autumn Festival Celebration” with the Asian Culture Society on Sept. 30 in Adanti Student Center in Room 217.
“We wanted to bring this tradition to Southern,” communication major Catherine Vu, a senior and president of ACS, said. “We wanted to include everybody that wants to learn about the Mid-Autumn Festival, and bring a little part of the celebration here, even if they’ve never celebrated it before.”
Students were given lanterns and a variety of crafting paper and paints to start their designs. Vu projected an inspiration page of different lanterns as the students began to paint.
“I saw the lantern decorating stuff, and I thought it looked interesting,” psychology major Holly Gottmann, a senior, said.
As the decorating went on, a themed drink menu went around with mocktails for students to choose from, including red lantern, moonlight mist and autumn blossom.
The drinks had a variety of ingredients including sprite, lemonade, lychee, cherries and whipped cream.
With the drinks, students were given mooncakes, a traditional Chinese pastry eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
“Mooncakes are one of the symbols of the Mid-Autumn festival, along with jade rabbits, and lantern making, which is what we’re doing right now,” Vu said.
Throughout the event, Vu played various videos teaching students what the Mid-Autumn Festival is, who celebrates it and what traditions they perform.
“The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional Asian festival that celebrates the full moon and family togetherness. There’s a lot of Asian countries that celebrate it outside of China,” Vu said.
Students created lanterns of various designs, some painting animals, some cutting out shapes and some doing solid colors.
“I wanted to make some Asian friends,” computer science major Anh Ly, a freshman, said.
Ly and many other students used the event as a way to connect with each other.
“I liked sitting down and chatting with other people who were the same age,” Ly said.
According to Asian Americans United, an organization based in Philadelphia that aims to build community and challenge oppression, the Mid-Autumn Festival began in ancient China, where the moon was seen as a source of life, which started many traditions such as the lantern-decorating, and the eating of the mooncakes.
“I think it’s a great community building event, and we can learn about other cultures,” Gottmann said.
Towards the end of the event, students were able to finish their lanterns and bring them home, bringing a piece of learned tradition and culture.
