It’s Fall time again in China, and for all Chinese people around the world.

The air grows cold and crisp, the leaves start to turn into beautiful shades of red and burnt orange. Fall marks another event the Mid Autumn Festival. Traditional Chinese celebrations land on the 15th day of the 8th month in the lunar calendar.

Families prepare an assortment of fresh fruits and the much adored Autumn mooncake. Traditionally, moon cakes are made of sweet filling such as red bean paste or lotus bean paste, with a cooked egg yolk wrapped in a pastry mold. Due to the sweetness of the traditional mooncake, it is generally cut into four so that each piece is a quarter of an egg yolk. It thus appears as if you can see the moon in your cake.

Nowadays, Autumn moon cakes come in many varieties. Snow mooncakes are made of mochi (cold jelly) mold with tasty fillings like pineapple, lychee and melon. Better yet, they also have ice cream mooncakes coated with Belgian chocolate and a cold creamy filling with flavours like tiramisu, green tea, durian.
Sip hot Jasmine tea
During the Mid Autumn Festival (also known as Festival Mooncake), families and friends usually exchange gifts of mooncakes and teas. These sweet treats go really well with Jasmine or Oolong teas. Legend has it that there is a rabbit and a woman on the moon. So on September 22, 2010 get together with friends and family and see if you can spot them.

Try delicious Chinese mooncake and sip some Jasmine tea while gazing at the moon.

Source : http://www.kiwicollection.com/wow-travel/wine-dining/mid-autumn-festival-in-china

The 15th day of the 8th month of the Chinese lunisolar calendar is the traditional Mid Autumn Festival in China, also known as the Moon Festival. In 2010 the Mid-Autumn Festival falls on Wednesday, September 22nd, and in 2011 it falls on September 12th. See our special report on the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Why is the Mid-Autumn Festival so important? It is related to the moon and Chinese people like the moon very much. In Chinese culture, the full moon is a symbol of peace and prosperity for the whole family. Its roundness symbolizes wholeness and togetherness. In the middle of the eighth month of the Chinese calendar the moon is full, and eight is also a popular number in Chinese culture, symbolizing wealth and prosperity. So people believe this day is very propitious.
Celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival
The Mid-Autumn Festival has a history of 2000 years. During these 2000 years lots of Mid-Autumn traditions have been thought up by Chinese people. All the celebrations show the happiness and excitement of people.

The main celebrations during the Mid-Autumn Festival are appreciating the moon, eating Autumn moon cakes together and making Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival lanterns. These three celebrations have been passed from generation to generation. Chinese people may think the Mid-Autumn Festival is not coming if they don’t do these three things.

In some places in China people celebrate the festival in different ways. In Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, people eat taro to celebrate the festival, because the taro harvest occurs at the same time as the festival. They eat taro and hope the harvest is good in the next year. In Nanjing, people cook duck with sweet-scented osmanthus, because Nanjing people think sweet-scented osmanthus is a symbol of peace. In some places people make fires inside a towers to celebrate the Festival Mooncake, because they think the fire is a symbol of good business.

Source : http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/culture/mid-autumn-festival.htm

Here is the story behind the Lantern Festival (Mid autumn festival): During the reign of Emperor Wu Di of the Han Dynasty, there was a palace maid named Yuanxiao. Yuanxiao was a clever and kind-hearted girl, but she was very sad and homesick as she was locked up in the palace all year round.

Luckily she found a friend in a minister called Dongfang Shuo. He told the emperor a clever story and helped Yuanxiao see her family again.

Shuo told the emperor the Supreme Deity of Heaven had ordered the God of Fire to set the city of Changan ablaze on the 16th day of the first month of the lunar year. Shuo said the only way to prevent this from happening was to let off firecrackers and hang up red lanterns all over the city. Shuo said everyone-even the palace maids-would have to participate in the lantern show.

Knowing that the God of Fire loved to watch a good fire show and that he also liked the dumplings made by Yuanxiao, Shuo suggested to the emperor he allow Yuanxiao to present her dumplings to the god. Shuo said the fire god would surely be appeased and therefore save the city of Changan.

The emperor bought the story and ordered the city of Changan to spend that entire night letting off firecrackers and playing with lanterns. Nothing amiss happened that night and Yuanxiao took advantage of her time outside the palace to have a family reunion.

Emperor Wu Di had such a good time that the next year he again ordered that red lanterns be hung all over the city on that same day and the little palace maid made her dumplings again too.

Thus the 15th day of the first lunar month of the year became a festival. The Lantern Festival is also called the Yuanxiao Festival, named after the famous dumplings. On this night, people celebrate under the first full moon of the year (Festival Mooncake), which is symbolic of family reunions and a full happy life (Autumn moon cakes).
Source : http://www.orientalfood.com/culture/festival/legendoflantern.shtml