Eight things to know about the Mid-Autumn Festival in Philly’s Chinatown

The Mid-Autumn Festival returns to the streets of Chinatown on Saturday, a live resumption of the big holiday celebration following two years of online events. The 27th annual festival starts at noon, featuring musical performances, carnival games, and the ever-popular mooncake-eating contest. It also comes amid uncertainty, evident even in the festival logo, which depicts Chinatown demonstrators demanding an end to anti-Asian hate crimes — and to plans for a new Sixers basketball arena nearby. With “8″ being the luckiest number in Chinese culture — it’s pronunciation similar to the word for “prosperity” — we offer eight things you never knew about the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The festival was started by a kid. In the fall of 1996, 13-year-old Andy Zeng was saddened by what he saw in Chinatown — older people who missed the traditions of their homeland, and parents too overworked to spend holidays with their children. Zeng and his friends collected $400 in donations from skeptical business-owners, then staged the first festival in the parking lot of Holy Redeemer Chinese Catholic Church. That night, a parade that glowed with handmade, traditional lanterns moved through the neighborhood, and a tradition was born.

They’re not dragons; they’re dogs. Those big, dancing animals with the satin bodies, gaping mouths, and blinking eyes? Yeah, they’re dogs. Foo Dogs to be exact. They’re also called lions, since they perform the Lion Dance. But the dragon, when it appears, is a long, thin creature, held aloft on poles by a dozen or more people. The dragon is always in motion, forever chasing the pearl that lingers just beyond his reach.

The Mid-Autumn Festival has more than one name. It’s also called the Moon Festival. And it’s been celebrated in Asia for thousands of years, usually on the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, when the moon is brightest. It’s similar to Thanksgiving, a day for families to gather, to celebrate their affection for one another, and to gaze up at the night sky, searching for Chang’e, the goddess who was banished from heaven to the moon.

It’s no accident that the festival takes place on the street. In 2000, a six-month protest blocked city plans to build a Phillies stadium in Chinatown, a victory for a community that for decades had lost land to public-works projects like the Vine Street Expressway and the Pennsylvania Convention Center. After the protest, leaders of sponsor Asian Americans United decided to move the festival into the streets, wanting the event to stand as a political act, as a physical and cultural reclamation of space.

The winner of the mooncake-eating contest gets $1 million in cash. Just kidding. Usually the prize is a baseball cap that says, “Mooncake Eating Champion.” But if you’ve never tried mooncakes, now is your chance. Like the holiday they honor, they come but once a year, their thin outer crusts containing fillings of lotus, egg, dates, or bean paste. Some mooncakes are ornate, others plain, but all are meant to be shared.

The entertainment at the first festival featured a kid creaking out a tune on his violin. No more. Since the days of those early, handmade events, the entertainment has expanded to the expert, including performances by Peter Tang, a virtuoso on the erhu, the two-stringed Chinese violin, and by the Philadelphia Chinese Opera Society, led by Shuyuan Li, a fourth-generation Beijing Opera master.

An estimated 5,000 people usually attend. That’s probably an undercount. Asian Americans represent the fastest-growing population in the country, up 81% between 2000 and 2019 to 19 million people. In Philadelphia, the Asian population has nearly tripled since 1990, from 43,522 to about 120,000 people today. Asian Americans now comprise 8% of city residents, up from less than 3% in 1990. Of course, the festival draws people of all ethnicities, and everyone is welcome.

It’s a gate. Don’t call it an arch. The magnificent, street-spanning Chinese gate that forms the festival backdrop was dedicated in 1984 to honor Philadelphia’s sister-city relationship with Tianjin, China. In ancient times, Chinese gates were the entry and exit points to walled cities. When the walls came down, the gates remained, employed as symbolic entrances to parks, neighborhoods, and towns. The Friendship Gate at 10th and Arch weighs 88 tons and stands just shy of 42 feet tall.