Full coverage: Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival

·Customs of Mid-Autumn Festival in Guangzhou

Hanging lanterns

Each family makes lanterns with bamboo strips as the Mid-Autumn Festival approaches. The lanterns are made into various shapes, with representations of animals, fruit and insects. Candles are lit inside the lanterns at night and smaller lanterns are stringed to the main lantern. The strings of lanterns are then tied to a bamboo pole, which is fixed in front of the door or hung in trees. This practice is believed to bring good luck to the family. The height of the lanterns is said to determine the level of luck the family will enjoy: the higher the lanterns, the luckier the family will be.

Eating river snails

River snails are traditionally an indispensable food of a Mid-Autumn Festival dinner for people in Guangzhou. River snails are usually cooked with medicinal herbs to dispel the unpleasant smell of the snails. Eating river snails during the Mid-Autumn Festival is believed to help brighten the eyes.

Worshipping the moon

In the areas of Chaozhou and Shantou in Guangdong Province, women and children worship the moon on Mid-Autumn Festival nights. As the night falls, they burn joss sticks in front of a table with offerings of fresh fruits on . Good wishes are whispered to the moon when worshipping in hope that the moon would bring them good luck.

Bathing in the moonlight

In old days, women in Dongguan believed that the moon was a matchmaker. Families with young men or women who had not found their beloved would burn incense under the moon and beg the moon to bring them their love. Tradition has it that women might become pregnant if they quietly bathed in the moonlight on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival. In some areas, on the moonlit night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, some women, who were married for a long time but were infertile, went out of their houses and bathed in the moonlight all the while wishing to have lovely babies. People called this "moon bathing"

·Custom of Mid-Autumn Festival in Hong Kong

The Fire Dragon Dance is the most traditional custom of Mid-Autumn Festival in Hong Kong. From the night of the 14th of the eighth lunar month (in the period from early September to early October), a grand three-night fire dragon dance is held in Tai Hang, Causeway Bay. The fire dragon is over 70m (230 ft) long. The dragon body is comprised of 32 sections which are stuck full of long joss sticks. On the pageant night, in streets or lanes in this block, lines of winding and undulating fire dragons will dance joyfully under the light of lanterns to music of dragon drums. It is very noisy! There is a legend about the origin of the Hong Kong fire dragon dance on Mid-Autumn Festival. Once upon a time, after a storm attack, there appeared snakes in Tai Hang, which did evils everywhere, so villagers hunted them everywhere and struck them dead. Unexpectedly, the following day the snakes disappeared without any trace. A few days later, a plague took place in Tai Hang. Then, suddenly a Bodhisattva appeared in the dreams of elders of the village, and said that if they just danced the fire dragon on Mid-Autumn Festival, they would get rid of the plague. This was quite successful. Since then, the fire dragon dance has been practiced till now.

No matter how many traditional superstitions the legend has, China is the homeland of dragons. In Hong Kong, the Tai Hang fire dragon dance during the Mid-Autumn Festival has had a history of more than 100 years, and that is worth cherishing. Nowadays, the Tai Hang fire dragon dance is large in scale, excluding the head coach, coaches, commander-in-chief, commanders and security groups, dragon dancers can be over 30,000.

·Custom of Mid-Autumn Festival in Shanghai

Customs of Mid-Autumn Festival in Shanghai include worshiping the moon and burning incense. When the moon rises, people set tables in the open air and offer mooncakes, melons, fruit, green soybeans, taro, lotus roots and so on. Moon Palace magical figure paintings show the Jade Hare standing with a club are offered as well. In ancient times, it was said the moon belonged to yin (the female part of the yin-yang philosophy), so in the full moon celebration women worshipped the moon first, then the men. It was also said that "Men needn't celebrate the full moon". When the full moon celebration is done, family members drink reunion wine and have an admiration-of-the-moon dinner. A woman lodging at her parental home must return to her husband's family on the evening of the Mid-Autumn Festival to celebrate the Mid-autumn Festival. Going on a walk and admiring the full moon is called "zou yueliang" (‘moon walking’) by Shanghainese. Women taking a walk at night with friends is called "ta yue” (a moonlight stroll). Lujia Stone Bridge is outside Xiaodongmen, Shanghai, under which the reflection of the bright moon bobbling in the water contrasts adorably with the shining moon in the sky. So tourists come like hungry carp, rushing to watch. This is one of the "Top Eight Scenic Spots in Shanghai"

There is a custom of incense altars (called shaoxiang dou) among Shanghai people. The incense altars, also called douxiang, are made by traditional offerings shops, in a truncated square-based pyramid shape, standing large end up. Large ones are more than two feet wide. Muslin is pasted around the altar, and there are decorative images of the Moon Palace and pavilions. Some xiangdous are made by weaving joss sticks. On the altar are things like the Dragon Gate and Kuixing (the Daoist god of fate). Above are colorful banners and flags. In Shanghai, the most magnificent scene of incense altars on Mid-Autumn Festival is always in Nanyuan ('South Garden'). Abutments of many great bridges in and around the city are lit by special large xiangdous.

·Customs of Mid-Autumn Festival in Xiamen

As the Mid-Autumn Festival approaches, when the night comes, streets and lanes in Xiamen will come alive with the euphonious clang of dice colliding with china bowls during moon cake gambling. Xiamen's "moon cake gambling" is also called "the Mid-Autumn Festival cake gambling" or "festival cake gambling". The formation of this custom is related to Zheng Chenggong, a national hero. It is told that Zheng Chenggong stationed his troops in Xiamen more than 300 years ago, on the full moon night of the 15th day of the eighth Chinese month, officers and soldiers, who were full of the heroic spirit that overturned the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) and reinstated the Ming Dynasty, found it hard to avoid feelings of missing hometowns and folks. To resolve and relieve soldiers' pains of missing hometowns and folks during the festival, Hong Xu, who served under Zheng Chenggong, devised a mooncake gambling game to let soldiers admire the full moon and gamble for mooncakes. Zheng Chenggong personally approved that, during six nights from the 13th to the 18th of the eighth lunisolar month, the army would admire the full moon and gamble for moon cakes in turns according to odd and even dates. Later, this unique custom was gradually disseminated and improved among locals, becoming an interesting folk activity. In the first year relatives and friends or sworn brothers and sisters would club together to buy a box of moon cakes or two and gamble together. Whoever won would give everybody a box of moon cakes to gamble with next Mid-Autumn Festival. If anyone had a child, the winner should give him/her two boxes. Thus, there is increase in mooncakes, but no decrease year by year, so they would have to divide into two independent groups again. The gambling is hosted by the elder of a common family, who buys a box or two of mooncakes each year. All the family members gamble in a ring.