Mid-Autumn celebration «Đèn Hoa Rực Rỡ - Vui Hội Đón Trăng»

   On the night of the full moon itself, the mall hall by the Crescent lake turns into a festival floor: music, mini games with prizes, photo corners and a parade of the characters children have been walking past all month in the decoration. Nothing to prepare and nothing to book: you only need to be there that evening.

   The celebration is the closing point of a whole Mid-Autumn season that Crescent Mall has been building since late August. Its backdrop is the Moonlit Moominvalley installation, the first time the Moomin world has been staged at this scale in Vietnam, open until 27 September. Moomintroll, Moominmamma, Moominpappa and their friends stand among greenery, small stone paths, red lanterns and warm light under a paper moon.

   Why Moomins for a reunion festival? The world was created by Tove Jansson (1914–2001), the Finnish writer and illustrator. The first Moomin story was written during the Second World War and published in Finland in 1945; it follows Moomintroll and Moominmamma searching for a missing Moominpappa and for a place to call home. That idea of home and of somewhere to return to sits very close to what the eighth-month full moon is about.

   In the weeks before the celebration, every weekend brings the craft series «Gói ghém mùa trăng», with the theme changing week by week:

• — 05 – 06.09: painting a Mid-Autumn drum
• — 12 – 13.09: making a star lantern
• — 19 – 20.09: candle-light crafts
• — 26 – 27.09: a crescent-moon piece

   It suits families with small children, and anyone who would rather spend the full-moon night indoors than shoulder through a crowded street: everything happens under air conditioning, and children can play and rest in the same place. The starting hour has not been announced, and neither have the rules for joining the games; the organisers ask visitors to check at the information desk on the ground floor.

   All of it takes place in Hall B on the ground floor. A compact, cool and child-friendly moon season, closed off by one evening worth staying up for.