It is everyone’s sixth week at Furman, and it is also everyone’s sixth week away from home. Whether your family is just a few hours away or happens to be in Xian, China, they are there, you are here, and you probably miss them. Friday, Sept. 20, the Chinese Student Association hosted on a celebration of the Chinese Moon Festival, a traditional holiday about bridging distances to connect with loved ones.

Chinese student Qidan Guo described the traditional festival as “a day where the family goes to one place and gets together” and said that people celebrate by eating moon cakes, a kind of pastry, and releasing lantern lights into the air.

In the festival’s legend, a man makes these moon cakes because of his love for his wife, who has become trapped on the moon after taking a magic pill. For this reason, during the festival, which usually occurs during a full moon, families come together and remember those relatives far away who they miss the most.

At the celebration on Sept. 20, the Watkins Room was packed, filled with about 100 students from a variety of backgrounds, all enjoying Chinese food and cultural performances. Freshman performer and student Bella Mei said the event was a success.

“We invited all our own friends, and because we had met a lot of the orientation staff for international students, they brought their friends as well,” Mei said. “The event actually lasted hours longer than we expected because so many people came.”

One week later, the Greenville Chinese Culture Association, in cooperation with the Furman Department of Asian Studies, hosted their own Chinese Moon Festival in the packed Furman Amphitheater. Like the earlier celebration, this festival involved Chinese cultural performances, including dance, song, and martial arts, and Chinese food. According to the GCCA, the event’s intended purpose was to allow members of the Greenville community a chance to interact with Chinese culture and GCCA members.