What I love about Melbourne is that it has a diversity of culture. That is the reason why there are a lot of festivals around the year in any season, Winter, Summer, Spring or Autumn.
The First Festival I went to was Lunar Festival which was held in Queen Victoria Market. I also went to South African Festival helding in Fitzroy and some others that I could not remember the theme as I was too new to Melbourne at the time.
The most recent one is the Mid-Autumn Festival of Chinese and Vietnamese tradition. Being an Asian girl made me really eager to come and join with thousand of people in small walking Whiteman street. What made me love this festival were variety of food and drink, traditional activities such as dragon dancing. There were many different food stalls from many different countries such as Vietnam, China, Malaysian, Thai, Japan …
While I was considering which ones I should go for, I heard the sound from the drums somewhere and I saw a lot of people surrounding something. It was not more than 5 seconds until I knew what was actually happening. Its’s Dragon Dancing. I stopped my desire of eating and walked straight to the crowded circle. A westerner girl standing there before me ask whether I knew what happened. She was wondering what was that and why happened because it attracted so much people watching. I replied quickly “dragon dancing” without any further explanation as I was too excited watching them.
Yes Mid-Autumn festival is very popular festival among Asian people, especially China and Vietnam. Honestly I do not know about its history. As far as I know that it is an event held for children to have fun and celebrate together. They are received gifts with cakes, candies and moon cakes from organisations. They are also bought lanterns to follow the dancing dragons until the day ends.
I remembered when I was a kid, I was really happy when my parents bought me a paper lantern with a small candle inside. On the night of Festival, I and my cousins followed the dancing dragon to every single houses and came home very late on the day.
Even though I am not living in Vietnam now and not a kid anymore, Mid-autumn is still a special festival for me to recall my childhood and smile.
I feel so lucky to be here that the events are celebrated mang different places during the festival.
At Crown
Click here to watch Dragon Dancing
Crystal Tyn
Crystal Tyn 