After dinner last Wednesday, the Middlesex Chinese Club invited the community to celebrate Moon Festival by making sweet pastries known as “Moon Cakes.” Traditionally, Moon Festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. Hyun ’16 explained the origins of the festival to the School, noting that centuries ago in East Asia, “when most of the population worked on farms, the Moon Festival served as a celebration of their harvest during the autumn full moon. The ancient Chinese have worshipped the moon since ancient times, and this tradition lives on to this day throughout Asian cultures.” Led by the Chinese Club and faculty members Annie Ku and TianTian Wang, the event was attended by over 70 students, faculty, and faculty family members.
The Moon Festival celebration then carried over to the following Saturday, when four faculty members took 24 Middlesex students (hailing from Korea, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, New York, Spain, Vietnam, and Thailand) to a lunch at Bamboo Restaurant in nearby Westford. There, students feasted on an all-you-can-eat buffet that included Peking duck, Hong Kong style roast pork, moon cakes, BBQ chicken, and sweet rice dumplings.