In Vietnam, Têt-Trung-Thu (tet-troong-thoo) or the Mid autumn festival is one of the most popular family holidays. It is held on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month (September 12, 2000).

Vietnamese families plan their activities around their children on this special day. In a Vietnamese folklore, parents were working so hard to prepare for the harvest that they left the children playing by themselves. To make up for lost time, parents would use the Mid-Autumn festival (Autumn moon cakes in China) as an opportunity to show their love and appreciation for their children.

Appropriately, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also called the Children’s Festival. In the United States, this tradition continues in many Vietnamese-American communities. Trung-Thu activities are often centered around children and education. Parents buy lanterns for their children so that they can participate in a candlelit lantern procession at dawn. Lanterns represent brightness while the procession symbolizes success in school. Vietnamese markets sell a variety of lanterns, but the most popular children’s lantern is the star lantern. Other children’s activities include arts and crafts in which children make face masks and lanterns. Children also perform traditional Vietnamese dances for adults and participate in contests for prizes and scholarships. Unicorn dancers are also very popular in Trung-Thu festivities.

Like the Chinese in Festival Mooncake, Vietnamese parents tell their children fairy tales and serve mooncakes and other special treats under the silvery moon. A favorite folklore is about a carp that wanted to become a dragon. The carp worked and worked and eventually transformed itself into a dragon. This is the story behind the mythical symbol, Cá hóa Rông. Parents use this story to encourage their children to work hard so that they can become whatever they want to be.

There’s also a story about how the Moon Lady ascended to the moon. A man named Chu Coi found a lucky tree that had special healing powers. Because this tree was sacred, people were forbidden to urinate at the foot of this tree. Unfortunately, Chu Coi’s wife, Chi Hang forgot the rule and urinated on the tree. On day, while she was sitting on the tree’s branch, the tree started to grow and grow. Eventually, it reached the moon, Since then, Chi Hang lived on the moon for the rest of her life as a punishment for desecrating the sacred tree.

Source : http://kevdesign.com/midautumnfestival/vietnam.htm

The Mid-Autumn Festival in China falls on September 25th this year. It is a time to get together with family and friends, enjoying Autumn moon cakes and seeing the moon at its brightest, the Festival Mooncake has a very long history in China.

These days, while getting together with family for a traditional meal is still important, moon viewing may or may not be part of the festivities. A different kind of moon has taken over importance of the one in the heavens, and this one ends up on your plate.

Moon cakes are now a hugely popular traditional gift to give to friends, family, customers and clients. Even if you’re too busy to look up at the full moon on September 25th, make sure to eat one or two moon cakes to celebrate the Mid Autumn Festival this year.

Source : http://gochina.about.com/b/2007/09/20/coming-up-september-25th-chinas-mid-autumn-or-moon-cake-festival.htm

By: Edward

Gossip Girl, one of TV serial that is a hit now. Serena is the role artist in this serial.

Blake Lively plays Serena van der Woodsen in the hit television show, Gossip Girl. Serena is slim and ethereally beautiful; she is admired by every other girl in the show. She is very intelligent, but she is told often that she is not working to her full potential. She lives in the Upper East Side of Manhattan and comes from a family that is very prominent in New York society. She plays a very modest yet beautiful girl who is sought after by many guys in the show. She is a true romantic and is swept off her feet by Dan Humphrey, the lower middle class classmate from Brooklyn.

The real life of Blake Lively is not that far from the character she portrays on the series. She was born in Tarzana, California and is the youngest of five children. Both her parents were actors and all of her siblings have acted at one point as well. They are a very talented family and are well known in the acting world. Lively did not always want to be an actress though and it was not until later in life that she realized this desire.

As a child she was homeschooled and ironically, one of her home school classmates was actor Penn Badgley, who plays her love interest on the television series. Blake Lively went to Burbank High School in Burbank, California where she was in the National Show Choir. She was very popular in high school, just as she is in Gossip Girl and she was senior class president as well as a cheerleader. All through high school Lively had plans to attend Stanford University, but the summer between her junior and senior year, her brother had his agent send her out on a few auditions. She only went on two auditions, but in one of them she landed her very first acting role as Bridget in the film, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She actually did very well in her film debut and won a Teen Choice Award nomination for the Choice Movie Breakout Female.

Blake Lively put her college dreams on hold and appeared in movies such as Accepted, Simon Says, and Elvis and Anabelle. She will actually reprise her role as Bridget in 2008 in the sequel, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. Blake Lively is a force to be reckoned with and she looks like she will be on the circuit for a long time.

Source : http://www.floweradvisor.com.sg/lifestyle/technology/television/30407/blake_lively_in_gossip_girl/

See Also : Festival Mooncake, Mid autumn festival, Autumn moon cakes