Chinese club president Ellie Chen discusses Moon Festival

Saddleback’s Chinese Club celebrate the Mid-Autumn festival on Sept. 17th. Lea Packer

From Malaysia to China to Taiwan, the Mid-Autumn festival, or the Moon Festival, is a day where families come together to honor and give thanks to the harvest and pray for good health and happiness. For Saddleback’s Chinese club president Ellie Chen, this year’s festival was a chance to share some of the traditions with students despite being over 6,000 miles away from her home.

“Since most of us are international students, we don’t have a lot of family living close to us,” Chen said. “Our purpose of the club is to not only promote Chinese culture to campus, but to also make it feel like a home.”

Chen herself is from Taiwan and reported that most club members are Chinese students, but of course everyone is welcome to join regardless if they are international students or not.

“I asked a lot of other international students here, and they feel like they are more able to be themselves. They are more outgoing and talkative and are able to find connections with other students.”

“We actually had less time to plan this because we just started the club,” Chen said. “We promoted the event four days before it started by tacking on some fliers on the bridge and sharing through Instagram. We expected around 50 to 70 people.”

Chen and other club members’ hard work certainly lived up to their expectations and even went beyond their vision, drawing students from diverse backgrounds to enjoy traditional games and sweets.

“Over 200 people attended, so we were like, ‘Oh my gosh!,'” Chen said. “We bought three kinds of mooncakes: Red bean, egg yolk, and I forget what the other flavor was, but we shared all three at the event. And everyone likes boba here, right? We ordered more than 70 drinks and sold out.”

Clips discussing Chinese culture played on projectors around the room to share more information about the Moon Festival and how people around China celebrate each year.

Also called the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Moon Festival honors the moon and harvest that usually takes place in mid-September to early October. With a history dating back for over 3,000 years, the Moon Festival is also a day to pray for longevity and good fortune.

Considered one of the most important holidays in Chinese culture, people get together with family members and “eat yummy moon cakes” as they watch the full moon (Chen).

“I know in different areas of China they have different traditional celebrations, but in Taiwan, since I’m Taiwanese, we usually have barbecues,” Chen said. “Every area will have different celebrations, but we have barbecues for ours.”

With the momentum from this event, the club is now looking ahead.  They plan to organize a series of events that will further showcase Chinese traditions and celebrate the upcoming holiday season, promising more opportunities for cultural exchange and community engagement in the months ahead.

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