The Mid-Autumn Festival, and the moon behind it
The Mid‑Autumn Festival arrives quietly each year, slipping into the calendar on its own terms. This time it falls on Friday 25 September — the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, chosen because the moon is at its roundest and brightest. A night built for looking up.
Across East and Southeast Asia, people mark it in their own ways: Zhongqiu in China, Tết Trung Thu in Vietnam, and many names besides. What stays constant is the moon, the food, and the sense of gathering. A festival about light, harvest, and being with people.
The story most often told is of Hou Yi, the archer who saved the world by shooting down nine suns, and of Chang’e, who drank the elixir meant for him and rose weightlessly until she reached the moon — the closest place to the husband she was leaving behind. Hou Yi set out her favourite foods under the night sky, and looked up. A small act of devotion that became a tradition.
Today the festival is carried by three things: Mooncakes — dense, rich, cut into slices and shared. Lanterns — carried by children, hung in windows, glowing softly. Roundness — the moon, the cakes, the table, the idea of reunion.
Underneath all of it sits the harvest: a thank‑you for the year’s crop, held on the brightest night available. A reminder that some rituals endure because they feel good to return to — like looking up at a full moon and feeling, for a moment, connected to someone far away.
A night of brightness, reunion, and small rituals — the kind that feel a little like lighting a candle and letting the room soften. ## Why a candle maker cares
Because it is a festival about light, held in the dark half of the year, and about putting something small and glowing where people can gather around it. That is not far off the reason any of us make candles.
Four little monks, each keeping their own kind of quiet.
Have a look →Where to find us
We'll be at the Bodega Urban Market Mid-Autumn Festival, at Canary Garden Cafe in Canary Wharf, on Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 September, 10am to 6pm both days. 77 Marsh Wall, London E14 9SH.
We're bringing the full table — the Café Collection, the little monks, and the hand-painted pumpkins for anyone starting their autumn shelf early.
Come and say hello. Ideally after you have looked up at the moon the night before.