A flurry of children, many dressed in Chinese silks and other festive outfits, step outside into the September dusk. Each child holds a hand-decorated paper lantern with an electric tea light inside, casting a warm golden glow. They can’t contain their wiggles.
A tall dad with longish hair holds a portable speaker that blasts Chinese instrumental music to set the mood. His mini-me, Aiden—a toddler dressed in a red Mandarin shirt—dances at his side. There are dozens of families here, gathered for the distinctly Asian American Mid-Autumn Festival celebration.
Four years ago, I wrote an Observer story about celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival at the home of Sonia Leung, not long after we moved to Ann Arbor. That meaningful small gathering of three families has now blossomed into this celebration of over fifty people, hosted by Shirley Ma.
Related: Full Circle: Our Midwestern Mid-Autumn Festival (Aug. 2022)
“I love finding fun ways to blend what is familiar with new flavors and activities for the kiddos,” says Ma. She took our little Mid-Autumn Festival celebration to the next level—kicking off the celebration with a giant potluck feast of roast duck, japchae, mapo tofu, Korean fried chicken, and egg rolls, and sometimes even the round Domino’s pizzas of the original gatherings. (Mid-Autumn Festival is celebrated by eating round foods, like mooncakes, to symbolize the moon, unity, and coming together.) Dinner is followed by crafts, like making lanterns and play dough mooncakes, and a bevy of desserts like local treats from Faai Lok Bakery in Canton, Melona bars, tangyuan, and s’mores at an open fire made with round Asian biscuits and homemade marshmallows.
For the grand finale, we weave through Ma’s wild, wooded, Logan neighborhood property in a magical lantern parade to their small pond, where Ma, her spouse Dana, and our friend Annie Ye—Aiden’s mom—give each child a gorgeous floating lantern.
Ye’s family found the moment very poignant. “We lit the water lantern in remembrance of Aiden’s grandpa, who had recently passed,” she says, “so it was a way to remember our ancestors.”
My son also gently pushed his floating lantern into the reflecting pool while remembering his beloved grandfather who passed away in 2020. Kai turns thirteen this year and loves everything about these gatherings, including the food, wearing his beautiful silks, and the loud, chaotic festivities of the night. The highlight for him is leading the lantern parade.
“Ever since becoming a parent, I have been thinking a lot about the purpose and value of culture in your life,” says Ma, “and how to intentionally bring Chinese culture into our family’s life.”
But initially, she goes on to say, she really didn’t know how to host this holiday. Growing up in the Plymouth-Canton area, her family only celebrated Lunar New Year. “I was hyper-excited and inspired to hear about the gatherings Sonia and Michelle hosted for Mid-Autumn Festival, and wanted to try as well,” she says.
Along with copious research, Ma discussed plans with me, Ye, and Leung, to make the celebration as meaningful and inclusive as possible.
Leung’s two daughters—Daphne, age ten, and Ginny, age seven—look forward to the party and food. “But to be honest, they do not seem to think too much about these celebrations,” says Leung. “It’s the norm for them to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival with a huge group of friends.” She adds that “my children don’t feel like ‘the only Asians,’ as I did growing up in the Detroit suburbs.”
For these celebrations to feel like the norm is precisely the goal for so many of us Asian American families. “I grew up having very few kids look like me at school,” says Ye, who is from Iowa. “There weren’t many celebrations of my heritage, and I hope that Asian American kids in Ann Arbor will grow up with a normalization of their heritage and the confidence in their roots that comes along with that.”
Having grown up in the Chinese diaspora, I’ve also never celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival in its full glory in China or Taiwan. I’ve always experienced a small, watered-down version at home in Korea or Arizona, if we were lucky enough to celebrate it at all. Often, to be able to find mooncakes seemed like a win in itself. Now, in Ann Arbor, mooncakes of various kinds are stocked at not only the Asian grocery stores around town, but also at Costco, in beautiful gift-ready tins.
As parents, we have now recreated vibrant traditions that feel anything but quiet and lonely, that make our Chinese cultural holidays feel just as big and boisterous as Thanksgiving and Christmas for ourselves and our kids growing up in the Midwest, and that’s pretty darn remarkable.
Would you like to experience a Mid-Autumn Festival Celebration?
The Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, U-M Astronomy, the Nam Center for Korean Studies, and the Center for Japanese Studies invite you to the Judy & Stanley Frankel Detroit Observatory for a celebration of the Mid-Autumn Full Moon. This drop-in program includes activities in the observatory classroom, exploration of the historic observatory, and telescope viewing of the Moon. Families are welcome. Sept. 25, 8–11 p.m., Detroit Observatory, 1398 E. Ann.