Today, on September 26, the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the Republic of Belarus, the Chinese Cultural Center in Minsk, the Confucius Institute for Science and Technology of BNTU together with the Yunnan Song and Dance Ensemble held a Mid-Autumn Festival at the Belarusian National Technical University. Mid- autumn festival is the second most important holiday in China, which is traditionally celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the Chinese lunar calendar. It is also known as the Feast of the Moon or the Feast of the Moon Gingerbread, because it is celebrated on the days when the growing moon reaches its maximum.
In 2023 the Mid-Autumn Holiday will come on September 29.
In order to briefly and quickly get acquainted with the event, we offer the top 5 facts about the Mid-Autumn Holiday:
As you can see, one of the ways to celebrate mid-autumn is traveling. We consider that it isn’t necessary to fly or go somewhere, it is enough to feel the culture of another country.
It is a unique opportunity to make such a trip to China provided to BNTU students by the Confucius Institute for Science and Technology of BNTU. It was on its initiative that events dedicated to the Mid-Autumn Holiday were organized today.
The venue for the celebration was the hall of the third floor of the main educational building of BNTU.There is an exhibition exposition and a zone of master classes from representatives of CIST. The guests of the festival, among whom were not only students, but also pupils of secondary education institutions, were able to try themselves in calligraphy, knot weaving, Chinese Guohua painting and carving in the Jianzhi technique. Those who wished could also be made up as characters from Yunnan opera.
The main event of the Mid-Autumn Festival at BNTU was a concert, which was attended by artists of the Yunnan Song and Dance Ensemble.Before the concert we talked with the cultural adviser of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the Republic of Belarus, the director of the Chinese Cultural Center in Minsk, Xia Guanyuan. He told about the traditions of the Mid-Autumn Holiday and shared his impressions of the event at BNTU.
– The mid–Autumn holiday is a family holiday.All family members gather together, bake moon gingerbread and launch sky lanterns.There are many traditions and they can be different in each region.Today, being at BNTU I am pleasantly surprised by such a great interest of Belarusian youth in Chinese culture.
At the concert the audience saw how the faces of the warriors changed, how the girls danced with the rain and how the Chinese jinhu violin sang.Each performance of the artists showed a certain genre of art, whether it was dance, song, playing a musical instrument or an excerpt from Yunnan opera.
During the interactive sessions anyone could play on an ordinary leaf from a tree or try to perform a melody on a traditional Chinese instrument hulusa. For the bright performances and the emotions received, the audience thanked the artists with loud ovations and sincere smiles.
The events have ended but the impressions received will remind us for a long time about such a warm Mid-autumn Holiday.We thank the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the Republic of Belarus, the Chinese Cultural Center in Minsk, the Yunnan Song and Dance Ensemble and the Confucius Institute for Science and Technology of BNTU for organizing the event and wish everyone a happy Mid-Autumn Holiday!
