Growing in popularity since its debut fifteen years ago, today the Festival draws thousands of visitors to the community. Lantern Riddles are a traditional activity in China.Festival-goers guess the answers to the riddles on the colored papers and win small prizes. The Festival’s new location was ultimately a “political stand for the community while reclaiming their physical and cultural space in the city.” This move was made by the executive director Ellen Somekawa of Asian Americans United, who, after months of protesting the development of a new Phillies baseball stadium from being built north of Chinatown, won the battle against city officials. In 2001, the Festival extended beyond its usual proximity, with its church parking lot and onto the streets on Chinatown, closing down approximately two city blocks. This event marked the beginning of a new tradition. Here the reenactment of the legend took place along with a tai chi demonstration, moon cake eating contest and a traditional gazing at the moon. It included a lantern parade that began at the Friendship Gate to the Holy Redeemer Church. The first Mid-Autumn Festival was a small event on September 27, 1996. “When I help old people, it honors my grandfather,” Andy said, through translation. In a Philadelphia Daily News article Andy explains that he and his friends “designed the festival for the elderly in Chinatown.” When Andy was a little boy in china his grandfather who passed away when he was 8 told him the legendary story and when he came to the United States he wanted to honor his grandfather by bringing the celebrated tradition to Philadelphia’s Chinatown. It was then where Andy Zeng and his friend Bai Wei Wu played the roles of Hou Yi and Chang’er in front of hundreds of spectators in the parking lot of Holy Redeemer Church and School, the first Asian American school established in 1941. Here the Philadelphia Chinese Opera Society performs a Beijing opera excerpt. The Mid-Autumn Festival offers community members a chance to see arts that they seldom get to see in this country. Hou Yi had built a palace on the sun “representing the male aspect of Yang, in contrast to Chang’er’s new home on the moon which represents the female aspect, Yin.” Each year, on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, Hou Yi visits his wife on the moon that is why the moon is peculiarly round and bright. The legend goes on to say that Chang’er asked the Jade Hare that lived on the moon to make a pill so she could return to earth to be with her husband and presently the hare is still pounding herbs to make the pill. It is then where family and friends gaze upon the moon reminiscing about our family, and the world is “united in peace under the same moon”. The moon has a significant meaning to the Chinese culture it embodies “peace, love and family reunification.” Traditionally the Chinese celebrate the Moon Festival which is often called the Mid-Autumn festival in memory of the legend of Hou Yi and Chang’er. With the idea in mind they collaborated with Asian Americans United to start a Mid-Autumn Festival tradition of their own in the small Chinatown community of Philadelphia. With the Mid-Autumn Festival approaching, they desired to bring their traditions from China to their new home in Philadelphia. This legend was honored fifteen years ago by a group of immigrant students who found themselves homesick in a foreign land. Saddened, Hou Yi called out to his wife and saw a figure on the moon that resembled Chang’er shifting around. Hou Yi returned home to find that his wife was gone. Simultaneously, she floated to the sky, landing on the moon to be closest to the earth. Frightened by this, she instantly swallowed the pill to prevent him from possessing it. One day while Hou Yi was out hunting, Chang’er was attacked by one of Hou Yi’s courtiers who found out about the magical pill of immortality. He gave this pill to his wife to preserve until he could find another for the both of them. However, the Goddess of Western Heaven did not grant him his request so he returned home with the single pill. Hou Yi accepted the pill, but asked for another to live an immortal life with his beautiful wife, Chang’er. He became an instant hero and as a reward for his service to the earth the Goddess of Western Heaven gave Hou Yi a pill that would give him immortality. Mid-Autumn Festival goers enjoying a performance under the gate.įifteen years ago a legend was retold of a great archer named Hou Yi who bravely shot down nine of the ten suns that plagued the earth with his bow and arrow.
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