The joyous Mid-Autumn Festival, the third and last festival for the living, is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, around the time of the autumn equinox. Many refer to it simply as the "Fifteenth of the Eighth Moon". In the Western calendar, the day of the festival usually occurs sometime between the second weeks of September and October.

This day is also considered a harvest festival since fruits, vegetables and grain are harvested by this time and food is abundant. With debts settled prior to the festival, it is a time for relaxation and celebration. Food offerings are placed on an altar set up in the courtyard. Apples, pears, peaches, grapes, pomegranates, melons, oranges and pomelos can be seen. Special food for the festival include moon cakes, cooked taro, edible snails from the taro patches or rice paddies cooked with sweet basil, and water caltrop, a type of water chestnut resembling black buffalo horns. Some people insist that cooked taro be included because at the time of creation, taro was the first food discovered at night in the moonlight.

The round moon cakes, measuring about three inches in diameter and one and a half inches in thickness, resemble Western fruitcakes in taste and consistency. These cakes are made with melon seeds, lotus seeds, almonds, minced meats, bean paste, orange peels and lard. A golden yolk from a salted duck egg is placed at the center of each cake, and the golden brown crust is decorated with symbols of the festival. Traditionally, thirteen moon cakes are piled in a pyramid to symbolize the thirteen moons of a "complete year," that is, twelve moons plus one intercalary moon.

  Different celebrated forms

For thousands of years, the Chinese people have related the vicissitudes of life such as joy and sorrow, parting and reunion to changes of the moon as it waxes and wanes. Because the full moon is round and symbolizes reunion, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also known as the festival of reunion. All family members try to get together on this special day. Those who cannot return home watch the bright moonlight, longing deeply for their loved ones.

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