In mid-September, the nights are chilly and the moon is glowing bright. What a beautiful night, right?

In China, it is the second most important holiday of the year. “Mid- Autumn Festival” or “Mooncake day” is mainly where people invite other family members to gather and celebrate the full moon, while others watch the moon to celebrate it.

“The full moon also refers to the value of families in China by representing the reunion between family members,” junior Henry Lu said.

The Mid-Autumn Festival also marks the day that half of the year had past already from the lunar calendar. People in China get three days off from it.

Why do they worship the moon?

“Ancient Chinese emperors worshiped the moon in the autumn, as they believed that the practice would bring them a plentiful harvest the next year,” chinahighlights.com said.

During that day, a person will be given a rich, brown coated bakery with many flavors packed inside of it with a traditional Chinese character written on it. This is called a mooncake. Most of the symbols represent good luck and sometime the name of the flavor. Even though it looks small, it packs a lot of calories and is packed with flavor.

“Mooncake isn’t something you can eat a half of,” junior Riven Xu said.

The mooncake comes in many different flavors like: red bean, green tea, pork, dates and white lotus.

“My favorite is the red bean moon cake,” Lu said.

It is a tradition that can be celebrated by people other than the Chinese, if someone wanted to explore the Asian culture, they could.