Foreigners savor traditional culture at Mid-Autumn Festival event in Hong Kong

Hong Kong welcomed this year's mid-autumn festival with an arts and cultural event that showcased some of China's Intangible Cultural Heritage for locally stationed diplomats and business representatives among others.

The "Under the Mid-Autumn Moonlight" event, held Wednesday at Jao Tsung-I Academy (JTIA), was directed by the Hong Kong SAR Government and the Liaison Office of the Central Government in Hong Kong. It was organized by the Bauhinia Culture Holdings Ltd and hosted by China Foreign Culture Group Corporation and The Sino United Publishing (Holdings) Limited.

Xu Zhengzhong, chairman of Bauhinia Culture Holdings Ltd, said the event was aiming at exhibiting the elegance of traditional Chinese culture, better connecting people from different places through cross-cultural experiences.

The event featured a folk music performance where the musicians played the zither, pipa and xiao, a Cantonese opera, a skit which highlighted the Hanfu and a Chazhou big gong and drum performance. A cultural bazaar was also held, with artisans from various parts of China demonstrating silk embroidery, glass painting, and tea drinking ceremony. Paper lanterns which were handcrafted by members of the JTIA community festooned the halls of the venue.

One of the participants is Yoganthiran Manikam, Malaysia's vice consul for tourism, who experienced his first mid-autumn festival in Hong Kong. While Manikam is familiar with the mid-autumn festival as it's a major event among the ethnic Chinese community in Malaysia. But he said that back then, he associated the festival with just eating mooncakes.

But after watching the performance and participating in the bazaar, Manikam said he was happy to learn more about the mid-autumn festival.

"I love arts and culture (and I can see from the performance) the spirit of the people themselves," Manikam said. He arrived in Hong Kong seven months ago and is looking forward to more invites to similar events.

Lao diplomat Soubanh Kenethaburi said it was his first time to participate in a Mid-Autumn Festival event in Hong Kong and was looking forward to the Chinese costume performance.

Morvarid Najafi, an Iranian architect, tried her had at glass painting at the cultural bazaar and considered it "a great experience for me" and helped her to learn more about Chinese culture and tradition.

Jonathan Somerville, CEO of Pacific Coffee, said he liked the grace and the significant cultural aspects of the event.

Over 100 people, including members of the business and diplomatic community attended the evening gala. Bauhinia Culture Holdings Ltd is hosting a series of cultural events before and after the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Daily holiday in Hong Kong as well as in Shenzhen, Chairman Xu said.

Contact the writers at prime@chinadailyapac.com