Chinese Mid Autumn Harvest Festival

When I was home in December to visit family, I decided that despite the fact that I would be missing my family's Chinese New Year celebration, I still wanted to celebrate Chinese New Year, so, in my crowded luggage, I packed my 12 pairs of special chopsticks, ginger candy, Chinese snacks, and my Chinese dress.

The weekend of Feb 4 was the first weekend of Chinese New Year. In the States, my family had a party at home, went to the Chinese New Year celebration at church and the local Chinese association. Here, I moved into Torre Fuerte which still had a lot of painting and cleaning before it would be ready to host a party in. By the end of the month we were to the point where we could think about hosting parties, and then B&C moved in with us and all party plans went on hold and shortly after they left, Sara and Stephen went back to the States for the summer and I didn't want to have the party without them. So, finally, with most of my housemates here and the house looking good, I decided to pick back up the party idea, but I couldn't very well celebrate Chinese New Year in September. So, I looked for Chinese holidays and discovered that today is mid-autumn harvest festival (or moon festival).

So, invitations were sent out

decorations made

help recruited for cooking

and on Saturday Torre Fuerte hosted its first ever "Fiesta de la Luna China"

Our house was fuller than I've ever seen it, with over 40 people there. We played games

ate lots of delicious food (on the menu: dumplings, beef and noodles, fried rice, garlic ginger green beans, sesame chicken, sweet and sour chicken, egg rolls, and curry)

And chatted

When the majority of guests were gone and there was space enough, we finished off the evening with dancing. After all, what truly self-respecting Chinese Mid-Autumn Harvest Festival doesn't end with some salsa, merengue, and vallenato?