Junior Joyu Wang has spent the Mid-Autumn Festival, a Taiwanese holiday similar to Thanksgiving or the Chinese New Year, without her family for the past two years. Like many international students, the thousands of miles between her and Thailand made observing the cultural holiday in a new environment difficult.
“We as international students don’t get time with our families because we are studying abroad,” said Wang, a member of The Maneater staff. “We would get homesick, especially on specific festivals. This was one that would make us feel really homesick.”
Wang’s dilemma is one of the main reasons the Taiwanese Student Association established their annual Mid-Autumn Festival. Hosted in Memorial Union, the Aug. 11 celebration brought together students, faculty and staff for the association’s first big event of the year.
“Students come here and may be an international student,” TSA president Shiyao Lin said. “So they can come and meet other students. At the same time, a lot of Taiwanese faculty work here, so they can give advice or share their experience with all of the students. It’s a very important time for all Taiwanese students at MU.”
It’s a sentiment that Wang, now a member of TSA and on her second year of celebrating far from home, agrees with.
“It helped me feel more at home,” Wang said. “If we could gather together to do something that we would usually do at home, like gathering and sharing some food, that made us feel more comfortable.”
The festival, considered one of the three most traditional Taiwanese holidays of the year, according to the event’s Facebook page, is centered on the rising of the moon. A traditional dinner of Chinese and Taiwanese cuisine was served as part of the celebration.
“The festival is an important event in our culture,” PhD student Kangyang Jih said. “It’s kind of like a really big meal. Traditionally in this festival, on this particular day, the moon is the brightest, so people go outdoors to watch the moon. Nowadays people have begun to barbecue for this festival, but I don’t know where that came from. It’s what people do nowadays.”
While barbecue was not on of the offerings at the TSA sponsored event, a buffet featuring green tea, mushroom chicken, egg drop soup, fried noodles, dumplings and a variety of vegetables with meat provided a respite from dining hall food for $10. Taiwanese mooncake was also served.
“It’s a traditional food,” Wang said. “We had to get mooncake in America.”
A variety of events and performances, spoken mainly in Taiwanese or Mandarin Chinese, also characterized the event. Icebreaker games were used to introduce freshmen and new students, followed with charades and song guessing games. Each of the planned activities was presented as a surprise to the participants.
“The unknown was exciting,” Jih said. “They prepared performances and didn’t want to tell us. We didn’t know.”
The mix of language, cuisine and activities not only provided an outlet for international students to celebrate their culture, but also helped establish a familial setting for new students, both Taiwanese and non-Taiwanese alike.
“A lot of new students come to MU, so we hold this festival for all of the students,” Lin said. “This is a big family and this is the time to have family, so they can get a feeling of home here now and for the future.”
