Autumn East Asian Holidays

Chuseok

Chuseok is a Korean holiday often called the “Korean Thanksgiving”. Held on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, Chuseok is a special time for friends and family to enjoy a feast and spend time together. In addition, to festivities, koreans also celebrate Chuseok by offering food to ancestors in an ancestral ritual called charye (차레).  

Yebin Park (11)

“Chuseok is all about spending time with my family and honoring our ancestors. I personally celebrate Chuseok at my church. Each family brings food and we gather around an offering table talking and eating together. We show gratitude towards our ancestors and we have some other traditions. For example, I pray before I eat and we play a lot of traditional Korean games.

Some more of my favorite traditions are making songpyeon with my family since we get to put weird designs on it and playing tug of war with my family since it’s very fun and competitive. 

When I celebrated the holiday in Korea, we would all go to one specific house, talk, and eat together overnight. Chuseok was smaller and only within your family, but when I came to America and joined a church it became very big, and it’s still a lot of fun for me to celebrate.”

Yeonju Song (11)

“I celebrate Chuseok, an East Asian fall holiday that originates from Korea. Chuseok is basically a three-day-long Thanksgiving where we celebrate our family and honor our ancestors. We set out a table with food and offer it to our ancestors. 

My family tries to celebrate it every year but most of the time we just celebrate it when we go see our family in Korea. We still put the offering table out but we don’t play the games and all that.

Celebrating it in Korea is different than celebrating it here because it’s an official holiday and sometimes we wear traditional clothes, but now that’s not as common anymore. I get to see my whole family in Korea and we just kind of get to fool around and have fun. You can celebrate it with your community but it’s more to spend time with your family.”

Mid-Autumn Festival

The mid-autumn festival is a holiday celebrated across Asia in many different countries including China, Vietnam, and Japan with variations in how the holiday is celebrated in each country. Across cultures, however, the holiday is a time for families and communities to spend time together, eat mooncakes, make mid-autumn festival lanterns, and watch the moon together, with a strong focus on family and enjoy holiday festivities.

Michelle Nguyen (10)

“I celebrate the Vietnamese Mid-Autumn Festival. Typically, in Vietnam, it’s a holiday for the children similar to how we have Halloween in America. The kids get off of school and they have a break. They’ll also go around with paper lanterns to celebrate the coming of the autumn season and the joy/innocence of being a child.

Typically my local Vietnamese community holds events with performances from people in our community including singing, skits about folk tales, and food and games. A lot of people will come to see these events to watch the performances and participate in the event.

When I was younger, I used to celebrate it by making paper lanterns. I really liked the different ways you can showcase your culture and interests within one paper lantern. Over the years, I’ve grown from a kid who participated in the events that they would host to an older kid who will help the younger kids celebrate and carry on that tradition.

I think that the big takeaway from the holiday is showing how, as the seasons change, the kids are growing older. As I mentioned, I used to participate in all the games and now I’m teaching the younger kids the traditions. It shows how as the seasons change, the kids also change, but we still carry on the tradition and pass it on to the younger generations.” 

Serena Luk (12)

“I celebrate the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival holiday. Traditionally, this holiday is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. A big staple in terms of food is mooncakes and there’s an assortment of different mooncakes for people to choose from. 

My mom is really into celebrating, especially Chinese holidays. A tradition that we’ve done ever since I was like little is she’ll invite people over to celebrate the mid-autumn festival and we have like a potluck. 

Everybody brings food, usually Chinese food or Asian food. So then we make mooncakes by rolling out the mochi dough and then sticking ice cream inside. Then we use this stamp or seal to engrave the mooncake and fold it together. After that there’s like a print on it that’s really like cute and nice. 

Sometimes they turn out good. Sometimes they turn out bad. We put ice cream, custard, and basically anything we want inside of the mooncakes. When it’s finally dark outside, light lanterns, and take a walk around the neighborhood. Then we come back and everyone goes back home.”