Reflection and celebrations

"We will have my husband's parents and sister with us this year and so we will have a perfect Mid-Autumn Festival together with my parents and our newborn baby." - Niu Xiaoni

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"Now we have a two-month-old son, I'd like to keep the traditional family reunion, and I will tell him what I know about Mid-Autumn Festival, the beautiful folklore and the Chinese traditions when he grows up," says Niu, a 34-year-old market researcher, who is married to Matt Fish, a 38-year-old management consultant from the United States.

For Niu, Mid-Autumn Festival is a time for family members to get together. When she was a child, her family would gather at a big round table, where they ate dinner followed by moon cakes, under the big and beautiful full moon.

"My grandmother told me a gorgeous fairy lived on the moon with a white rabbit. I was fond of staring at the moon and imagining the fairy living in a huge palace," Niu says.

Niu says she feels the traditions of Mid-Autumn Festival are gradually fading among the younger generation, and few people use the festival as a chance to spend time with family.

She says moon cakes have changed, with ice cream and chocolate fillings replacing the traditional recipes. She says the changes make the festival more commercialized but less warm.

"I don't think Mid-Autumn Festival means the same things to the younger generation, who just see it is as a holiday to relax," says Niu, who prefers the traditional Chinese moon cakes.

Niu says that she will maintain the traditions of the festival, and try to include her foreign husband and half-Chinese son in her celebrations, to teach them the importance of family reunions at the festival.

Niu says her husband Matt Fish, who moved to China from the US in 2001, has already begun to realize the importance of the festival to her.

Before getting to know Niu's family, Fish treated the Mid-Autumn Festival as a long weekend, viewing it more as an opportunity to travel.

"Now, it is really the best time of the year to stay in Shanghai and get together with my new Chinese family," Fish says.

The Mid-Autumn Festival reminds Fish of Thanksgiving in the US, which is also a day spent with family.

"However, no American holiday has anything that tastes close to a moon cake," Fish says, adding that it is the time of the year he feels most connected to China and probably the least homesick.

To celebrate the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival, the family is going to have a large family get-together, with people from both countries.

"We will have my husband's parents and sister with us this year and so we will have a perfect Mid-Autumn Festival together with my parents and our newborn baby," Niu says.