Moon Festival rising over Dunedin

On the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, which this year falls on Saturday, 3 October, the Dunedin Chinese Garden will celebrate the Moon Festival, one of China’s three most important festivals.

The Chinese Garden will open on Saturday evening from 7.30pm – 10.00pm to celebrate this festival. Visitors can take part in traditional activities, such as eating mooncake, lighting lanterns and listening to myths of the moon. There will also be traditional Chinese music played by Alice Chung from the Heart of the Lake Pavilion.

A special entry price of $20 for two adults and two children includes lanterns for the children and the chance to try some mooncake, a round pastry traditionally filled with lotus seed paste and accompanied by Chinese tea. The regular price of $9 applies for other visitors.

In China, the Moon Festival, also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival, celebrates the end of the summer harvest season and the abundance of food at a time when the moon is supposedly at its roundest. It mirrors the autumn or spring equinox in the solar calendar.

The Chinese Garden has examples of lunar symbolism in the wooden Full Moon Gate to the right of the entrance, the circular patterns in the courtyard and the Half Moon Bridge.