CONTENT

A, B: Ladies and gentlemen, teachers and students here. Welcome to our

performance. Firstly, let’s enjoy our little play. Hope you like it.( Khoa
did it). Thanks for your watching.

A : As you know, Besides Lunar New Year Eve, the biggest holiday in
the year, Mid-Autumn Festival (Tet Trung Thu in Vietnamese) is the
second notable traditional celebration in Vietnam. Like many other
Asian countries, the Mid-Autumn Festival in Vietnam is also a
traditional event to celebrate the biggest full-moon in the year, which
follows the Lunar Calendar (Moon Calendar). It is said that this festival
originated in the Red River Delta's Rice Civilization thousands of years
ago. The festival has gained popularity during centuries and is well-
maintained until now.

B : Mid-Autumn Festival, like its name, is celebrated on the 15th day of

the 8th month in the lunar calendar, which falls into the middle of
Autumn, corresponding to mid-September to early October in the
Western Calendar with a full moon at night. It is also the time that
annual summer harvest time ends up, thus people call it as an East Asian
harvest festival. On this special day, all the members of the family
gather and prepare various sweets, fruit and they also prepare colourful
lanterns and wear many funny masks.

A: Mid-Autumn Festival plays an essential role in Vietnamese people’s

spiritual lives. Not only as a valuable tradition well-maintained
throughout generations, but this festival is also a meaningful event to
consolidate family interconnection by these following purposes:
Firsly, Special gift for children:
Although there are many fundamental concepts celebrated in the Mid-
Autumn Festival, in Vietnam, this is the time for the children. As its
name in Vietnam, Children’s Festival, from a familiar lunar date that
people mostly prepare for worship, this date is the emphasis on the
celebration of children as a very special gift for them. It is celebrated
after the summer harvest time by parents because they didn’t have time
to take care of their kids thoroughly during harvesting. After finishing
the main work, they want to make up for this by spending a special date
as a meaningful present for the children. Coincidentally, the middle of
the 8th Month in Lunar Calender is when the full moon is biggest in the
year. Hence they took advantage of this date to create happiness for the
children by buying lanterns, colourful masks, celebrating a traditional
feast and letting their kids enjoy the lantern parade under the bright Full
Moon. Thus, any Vietnamese kid always looks forward to this festival
whenever the 8th Month in Lunar Calendar comes.

B: Secondly, Family unions:

If Lunar New Year is a long holiday which helps members in the family
gather after an entire year far away from home, Mid-Autumn Festival is
a short union that keeps close-knit relationship amongst members in the
family. It is also said that the roundest and brightest Full Moon in the
year on this day stands for the completion as well as family assemblies.
People will gather, enjoy the feast, cheerfully share about their own lives
and admire the bright moonlight together.

A: Finally, Thanksgiving and praying:

After finishing the fruitful crop, people want to give thanks to their
ancestors for the harvest. And due to this special date, people have a
chance to come back home together, and they would like to express their
thankfulness for the family unions as well. Like traditional worship, the
Mid-Autumn Festival in Vietnam is also about praying good things for
everyone in the family such as success, health, longevity, and a good
future. This festival is a great event to teach the children about the
tradition, close-knit family relationship, kindness and sharing, solidarity,
and respect to their seniors as well as ancestors.
B: So how do Vietnamese celebrate the Mid Autumn Festival?
Markets or vendors purchasing Mid-Autumn Festival kinds of stuff are
getting busy about half to a month before the main date. Vietnamese
parents will buy several items for their kids as well as décor-stuff such
as colourful lanterns, especially traditional star-shaped lantern, toys, and
funny masks to be ready for a festive date.

A: Like other Asian countries celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival, the

typical festive food on that date in Vietnam is mooncake. It is a
dispensable delicacy for this festival only, thus foreigners can hardly see
this type of cake at other times in the year. Mooncake is a kind of rich
pastry typically filled with mashed beans, salted egg yolk, lotus seed
paste, salty paste with meat, lemon leaves or many other pastes
nowadays. Mooncake is cut into small pieces and shared among family
members. As the cake is quite sweet, the traditional way to enjoy this
speciality is eating while drinking hot tea, usually green tea. On the
occasion of the Mid-autumn Festival, mooncakes are usually used as
gifts for families and friends, especially their parents and grandparents.
However, Vietnamese people nowadays are also getting accustomed to
using mooncake as the customary gift for business to their clients,
colleagues, as an expression of their sincere sentiments and wish for a
long-lasting partnership.

B: Besides mooncakes, regional fruit is also a fundamental part of the

feast. Traditionally, like Tet Lunar New Year Eve, there are five kinds of
fruit arranged on the festive tray. The five-fruit tray of Vietnamese
people will be varied depending on each region with juicy, delightsome
local fruits. They even decorate the trays for a more attractive
appearance with fruit carving, various kinds of sweets, and of course,
mooncakes. On the date of the Mid-Autumn Festival in Vietnam, people
often prepare a lavish tray of festive food, put it on the ancestral altar to
offer their ancestors first as common daily worship. At night, the whole
family will gather around the delightsome tray, celebrate the feast by
savouring the food, admiring the bright full moon, and letting the
children freely play folk games with their lanterns and join the lively
lion dance or cheerful lantern parade with other kids. The parade and
dance could go through streets in the area and even light up until late at
night.

A: Now, return to our tent. It was .......( I will do it later)