Residents visit water-themed Mid-Autumn Festival displays at Panlong Tiandi in Shanghai on September 20, 2026. The site features nine lantern-viewing spots. Photo: VCG

Across China, families are gathering to mark a festival associated with reunion, moon-gazing and sharing food. This year's Mid-Autumn Festival falls on Friday, the first day of the three-day public holidays.

The celebration is no longer confined to family courtyards or dining rooms. In different places, it is taking on new forms while keeping its central invitation: come together.

At a Mid-Autumn Festival celebration in Kunshan, East China's Jiangsu Province, about 390 people from across the Taiwan Straits gathered together on September 16. The event featured lantern displays, folk performances, art exhibitions and moonlit gatherings, combining traditional customs with contemporary cultural and commercial activities, the Xinhua News Agency reported. 

Chen Youjie, a young Taiwan resident in Kunshan, said families and friends usually mark the festival by sharing mooncakes, admiring the moon and visiting lantern fairs. "The lantern displays change every year, but the feeling of home remains," he said. 

People admire lanterns at a Mid-Autumn Festival fair in Chaoyang district, Beijing, on September 17, 2026. Photo: IC

In Xuanwei, Southwest China's Yunnan Province, the celebration of Mid-Autumn Festival can be measured in mooncake boxes. Local factories are operating at full capacity, filling pastries with the city's signature cured ham, sealing them for delivery and promoting the sweet-and-savory specialty through livestreams. The result is a familiar festival food with a distinctly local accent.

In Hong Kong, the festival has become an urban spectacle with an international cast. The International Lantern Spectacular at Victoria Park, running from September 17 to 27, features a "World Lantern Boulevard" with more than 3,000 lanterns from 20 countries and regions. Four sets of lanterns from Nanjing's Qinhuai area, a national intangible cultural heritage, are also on display alongside more than 1,000 handmade lanterns created in Hong Kong, according to RTHK.

The city's celebration will also include the Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance, while shopping malls and businesses are adding their own programs. The result is a festival that remains recognizably Chinese but speaks in the language of a global city.

Gund Kwok lion dancers perform during the 56th annual Chinatown August Moon Festival in Boston, Massachusetts, on August 9, 2026. Photo: VCG

On the other side of the Pacific, San Francisco's Chinatown is preparing for its 36th annual Autumn Moon Festival. Over two days, visitors can watch lion dances, martial arts, folk performances, taiko drumming and music, while browsing food stalls, arts and crafts booths and mooncake displays, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

There is also room for a distinctly Californian twist: a dance contest, a dumpling-eating competition and a dragon parade. The festival was established in 1991 to help revive Chinatown businesses after the Loma Prieta earthquake, and has since grown into a community event attracting hundreds of people. Traditional symbols of family reunion and harmony now share the stage with the city's newer cultural rhythms, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. 

In Irvine, California, families will gather at Great Park on Friday local time for a free evening of performances, cultural displays, hands-on crafts and food. The city describes the event as an opportunity for residents to share traditions and stories across generations, the city's government reported.

From ham-filled mooncakes in Yunnan to lanterns from around the world, from a fire dragon in Hong Kong to pop dances in San Francisco, the details keep changing. What remains is simple: make time for one another, find a place to share food, and look up at the same moon together.

Themed lanterns are displayed in Macao Special Administrative Region, China, ahead of the Mid-Autumn Festival on September 18, 2026. Photo: IC

Volunteers and social workers accompany an elderly resident on a walk and chat with her at Zhongwang Elderly Care Service Center in Wuhu, East China's Anhui Province, on September 21, 2026. Photo: VCG

Teachers and children make mooncakes together at the food education workshop of Dongying Experimental Kindergarten in Dongying, East China's Shandong Province, on September 21, 2026. Photo: VCG