Vietnam celebrates Mid-Autumn festival

How the world celebrates Mid-Autumn Festival

Things you need to know about Mid-Autumn Festival

The adults usually talk about their jobs and their plans for the future or just watch some entertainment performed by some members of the clan," he said.

The children enjoy most during the festival. They expect their parents to buy them new toys, including hand-made toys such as dragon heads, five-star or rabbit head-shape lanterns, drums and masks. Some of the toys are imported from China.

Tuyet Dinh, 22, a fresh graduate from HCM City University, told Xinhua that in recent years her family (also of Chinese ancestry) has simplified preparations for the Mid-Autumn celebration.

"The festival is often on a working day and everybody has to go to work, so we just have a big family dinner together on the weekend ahead of the festival," Dinh said, adding that her parents often reminisced about how their own parents celebrated the festival in China.

Dinh said they have lived in Vietnam for many years and that's why they have joined the local residents in celebrating different festivals throughout the year, including the Mid-Autumn festival, which is now considered a festival mostly for children.

"However, we try to preserve our traditional customs, making it at least an occasion for members of the entire big family to meet and share fun with one another," Dinh said.

The Mid-Autumn festival is celebrated across East Asia such as China, the Philippines, Malaysia and other countries with a large population of ethnic Chinese.

The Chinese natives who came to settle down in Vietnam are commonly called as Hoa people. According to official statistics in 2009, there were over 800,000 Hoa people living in many localities in Vietnam, but mostly in southern Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai, Soc Trang, Kien Giang, Bac Lieu and Binh Duong provinces.

Currently, there are more than 500,000 Hoa people in HCM City living mainly in Cho Lon (Big Market) area covering District 5, District 6 and District 10. This is known as the city's Chinatown.

Although the Hoa people account for only a small fraction of the city's population of over 8 million, they control about 30 percent of the privately-owned businesses in the city.