On September 7th, 2019, over 20 active members of East Cobb Branch of AYLUS and other volunteers hosted TWO hours annual Mid-Autumn Festival at our local East Cobb Library. The annual festival provides an opportunity for anyone interested in Chinese culture to appreciate from watching live music and dance performances, participating arts craft, and traditional mooncake sampling. It is part of the Chinese Cultural Program launched by East Cobb Library. East Cobb Branch has been partnering with the library to host 2018 Festival and made it a success.
Cynthia Ruan, the host of the event explained the origins of the mid-autumn festival. Describing how it originated, when it is, and what it is about. The festival came about as a means of celebrating the yearly harvest and the moon. The festival occurs on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month which is at the time crops are harvestable. In 2019, it falls on September 13th.
The festival kicked off with Guzheng performance by Mrs. Yao Lu’s Guzheng Studio from Atlanta Chinese School. It is a traditional Chinese instrument of 21 strings, followed by Ashley Hua’s (Wish you are blessed , simultaneous translation by Charlie Mei.) The duet had a seamless performance even though they didn’t start working together until less than 2 weeks ago.
There was more amazing Guzheng performance by Siyuan Huang (《Lao Liu Ban》《Langtao Sha》). Our branch current President Michael Fu played violin solo “Flowers and Teenager boy”. Current branch member Jack Xu played Key Board Piano on (“My Motherland”). Eileen Zhang’s solo dance ““(“The Movement of the Beauty”). The audience was captivated the talented performance brought out by our branch members. Thanks to the high volume of sign-ups, the Festival was packed with another series of solo instrument performances by our branch’s active members – Faith Huang’s cello solo “Sweetness”, Max Jiang’s violin solo (“The colorful cloud chasing the Moon”),Duet C-Pop Dance by Eileen Zhang and Rachael Li, Grace shen’s flute solo (“The little half”)
Martin Yuan’s cello solo (“Swan”) and Brian Kuang’s Key Board Piano of (“The Moon Represents My Heart”). It was worth mentioning the skit (“Chinese Mom & Dad and their ABC kids”) created and played by a group of branch members Gary, Katherine, Kevin & Stanley. It is an accurate representation of Chinese familie’s lives; (depending who you ask) pressure in perusing academic high achievement from some of our Chinese parents. Some kids survived while other fizzled out in a very light hearted way.
In addition to the branch member’s bravo performance, our parents and grandparents showed off their musical talent as well. It’s honorable to mention Cynthia Yuan’s mom and Jack Xu’s grandma’s beautiful solos brought lots of joy to the party.
The next three group performance brought the Festival to its climax. The dozen EastCobb branch current members recited the most known poem (Reckoning in Silent Night) often recited at the Moon Festival celebration written by the most famous poet Li Bai from the Tang Dynasty. It describes someone, travelling far from home, is reminiscent of his hometown at silent night, followed by a chorus of, a very popular folksong among preschool aged kids taught in ancient Chinese schoolings.
It was so impressive to see the group of East Cobb branch members to put in their great effort on the great performance only after a few practices outside of their busy school schedules. The sound and visual effects brought in made the performance easy to follow and explanatory.
The last but not the least Tai Chi performance was brought out by Ms. Liu Jin. She invited the audience and the ALYUS members to follow her in demonstrating“ (Simplified 24 Styles Tai Chi Quan). The audience was captivated by the flow, fluid movement, and delicate balance in her demonstration.
At the end, supply tables with Paper Lantern and the Chinese Calligraphy were brought out allowing everyone to make traditional Chinese lanterns usually used at the festival and try out Chinese characters with soft brushes. In the meantime, AYLUS volunteers passed out various moon cakes to people to sample. The audience loved the moon cakes and the tables were swarmed with kids trying to make their own paper crafts. Eventually, the event ended at 1:00 pm and all the people had to leave with more knowledge and appreciation about the Mid-Autumn Festival.
ALYUS members brought the performance to a new level with more performances and doubled the last year’s attendance in terms of branch members and the audience.
Attendance: Michael Fu (2 hours), Brian Kuang (2 hours), Faith Huang (2 hours), Maxwell Jiang (2 hours), Rachel Li (2 hours), Stanley Lu (2 hours), Gary Mei (2 hours), Cynthia Ruan (2 hours), Katherine Sha (2 hours), Grace Shen (2 hours), Kevin Shen (2 hours), Nicholas Vincent (2 hours), Jack Xu (2 hours), Jerry Xu (2 hours), Martin Yuan (2 hours), Delrick Shen(2 hours), Eileen Zhang (2 hours), Susanna Huang (2 hours), Selina Huang (2 hours), Ashley Hua (2 hours), Charlie Mei (2 hours), Eugene Li (2 hours).
Reported By : Nicholas Vincent
