Mid Autumn Festival Tour (Sept, 2007)
Overview | Testimonials | Discounts
On this special tour, we will take you to take part in Vietnam's Mid Autumn Festival. While on this tour, you or your family will be able to meet with locals, especially the village children and join in the joy of the days activities. You also have a chance to visit with a local family, have a cultural exchange and stay with them in their traditional home.
On the main day of the festival, you will be witness to all the colorful activities and events right through to the evening. With your participation, the villagers will be even more excited to show you their culture and fun.
Details of the Mid Autumn Festival
For Vietnamese people, Tet Trung Thu (Tet Troong Thoo) or the Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the most popular yearly family holidays. It is held on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month. This year (2007) it falls on Sept. 24th & 25th.
Vietnamese families plan their activities around their children on this special day. In Vietnamese folklore, parents were working so hard to prepare for the harvest that they left the children playing by themselves. To make up for lost time, parents would use the Mid-Autumn festival as an opportunity to show their love and appreciation for their children.
Appropriately, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also called the Children’s Festival. Trung-Thu activities are often centered around children and education. Parents buy lanterns for their children so that they can participate in a candlelit lantern procession at dawn. Lanterns represent brightness while the procession symbolizes success in school. Vietnamese markets sell a variety of lanterns, but the most popular children’s lantern is the star lantern.
Other children’s activities include arts and crafts in which children make face masks and their own lanterns. Children also perform traditional Vietnamese dances for adults and participate in contests for prizes and scholarships. Unicorn dancers are also very popular in Trung-Thu festivities. 
Like the Chinese, Vietnamese parents tell their children fairy tales and serve mooncakes and other special treats under the silvery moon. A favorite folklore is about a carp that wanted to become a dragon. The carp worked and worked and eventually transformed itself into a dragon. This is the story behind the mythical symbol, Cá Hóa Rông. Parents use this story to encourage their children to work hard so that they can become whatever they want to be.
There’s also a story about how the Moon Lady ascended to the moon. A man named Chu Cuoi found a lucky tree that had special healing powers. Because this tree was sacred, people were forbidden to urinate at the foot of this tree. Unfortunately, Chu Coi’s wife, Chi Hang forgot the rule and urinated on the tree. One day, while she was sitting on the tree’s branch, the tree started to grow and grow. Eventually, it reached the moon, Since then, Chi Hang lived on the moon for the rest of her life as a punishment for desecrating the sacred tree. | How to arrange a tour to enjoy this event?
 Location: We have arranged one tradtional village in the outskirts of Hanoi, in Bac Ninh province, which is about 1.5 hours drive from town of Hanoi- Duration: To enjoy the whole event with the locals, we need to travel there and back in 2 days (Sept. 24th & 25th, 2007), but you can plan to see this event with us as an Add-On tour on your visit to Hanoi or Halong Bay cruise.
- Where to stay: To learn more about the village, you can stay at their traditional home. Or, to join in the festivites, we are better to go camping at the camping site of the village - beware, this might keep you awake all night.
- Group size: We do custom tours, just for you or your group and there should not be over 10 people.
- Booking deadline: All booking & arrangements must be done before Sept. 10th, 2007. Late booking subjects to availability.
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Overview | Testimonials | Discounts | Top Some pictures of the festival Mid Autunm in Vietnam
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