A bite into a mooncake is a bite into Chinese culture. On Friday evening, the Multicultural Center bustled with music, the sweet scent of mooncakes and laughter. Carleton’s Chinese Club hosted a mooncake picnic to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, one of the most cherished festivals in China.

“Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional harvest festival for family reunions,” said Lisa Li ’27, co-president of the Chinese Club, “People watch the full moon, eat mooncakes (a special dessert made with a sweet-based dough and filled with different pastes) and get together with loved ones. Since many of us are away from home, we plan this event every year to create a home for Chinese students on campus.”

The planning was simple but truly collaborative. “Our team got together weeks ago,” said Li. The most important yet challenging part is choosing the right mooncakes. “We compared brands to make sure the flavor matches our memories of authentic mooncakes back home.”

The organizers’ efforts paid off. Students from across diverse cultural backgrounds joined the celebration, chatting with friends, trying the mooncake, playing Chinese games and learning about the festival’s traditions.

For many Chinese students, the celebration was both nostalgic and comforting. Tina Peng ’29, an international student from Zhengzhou, China, said, “I miss how I had fun sharing mooncakes with my family during the seven-day national holiday. This event is different, but I still enjoyed it a lot.”

When recalling a small debate on mooncake flavors among students from different parts of China, Peng said, “We were discussing whether meat-stuffed mooncakes count as real mooncakes—I argue against it,” Peng laughed. “It’s really funny and I’m always glad to see how such trivial discussions connect us to our shared cultural identities.”

For many non-Chinese Asian students, this event made them understand what shared traditions mean. Esther Jeon ’29, from South Korea, said it reminded her of “Chuseok, a Korean harvest festival held around the same time.”

“Both festivals are about family and food,” said Jeon. “The memory of my family gathering and making Songpyeon, a special kind of rice cake, came to me when I tried the mooncakes. I talked to a lot of Asian people today and realizing that we share a similar cultural background made us build a closer friendship.”

Jeon said this event inspired her to think about collaboration among cultural clubs. “I hope next year different Asian cultural organizations can host a joint event,” she said. “It will be wonderful to connect shared traditions and let people acknowledge and respect them.”

The Mid-Autumn Festival celebration not only connects Asian students to their homes but also provides a glimpse into Chinese culture for those who have never celebrated this tradition.

Cruz Witten ’29 was brought to the festival by Asian friends but ended up enjoying the food and the connections he made, stating, “it was nice talking to people and it was just a really chill environment to socialize.” Even though this was Witten’s first time trying a mooncake, one thing he took away from this event was: “I now know Chinese people make good pastries.”

Similarly, Sasha Monks ’26 came to the celebration because she saw her Chinese teammate’s invitation and realized the event mirrored her experience in the A&I course, “The Cultural Life of Plants in China,” back in freshman year.

Monks said, “I was in ‘The Cultural Life of Plants in China’ class and my professor brought us mooncakes around this time.” Even though she could not remember everything from that class, she learned that at the Mid-Autumn Festival, there was a “celebration of looking at the moon and it was about home.”

Although the mooncakes ran out quickly, many students still gathered around the mahjong (a traditional Chinese game) set, chatting in both English and Chinese and immersing themselves in Chinese pop music. As Monks said, “it’s a great vibe.”

That’s what the organizers had hoped for. 

“There are really a lot of things our team wants fellow Carleton students to take away with: delicious mooncakes, friendship with community members and an interest in Chinese culture,” Li said. In stopping by this cultural event, every attendee had the chance to temporarily escape from a whole week’s schoolwork, build connections with people from different backgrounds and learn more about Chinese culture.

The Chinese Club wishes to continue its annual tradition of celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival at Carleton. Looking ahead, Li said, “If possible, we might try to add more traditions like lantern lightings or even teach people how to make mooncakes!”

“I wish we could have held the event on Monday, Oct. 5, the actual date of the Mid-Autumn Festival,” Peng said, “It would feel more like home if we can watch the full moon rise together.” Nevertheless, even without the full moon, this celebration allowed for traditions to find new life on campus.