 | | | Photo David Scholz | | | | | | On Sept. 19, 20 participants joined with local Asian communities to celebrate the Mid Autumn Moon Festival with a multi-faceted program at the Lafayette Library. The program was led by long-time San Francisco Asian Art Museum docent Pauline Tsui, who shared her Asian heritage and extensive experience with Chinese painting. She demonstrated the proper way to hold the brush, and demonstrated how having adequate paint and water on it allows you to make different strokes as they learned to paint cultural symbols, including the rabbit, that are part of the Autumn Moon Festival.
All throughout, Tsui reminded attendees "the goal is to have fun." She likened the festival year to America's Thanksgiving where the emphasis is on gathering with loved ones and giving thanks and expressing gratitude for those in their lives. Those in attendance saw the experience as way to both learn a new skill but also boost awareness of another culture. The three-day celebration this year began Sept. 17. In addition to a PowerPoint that spotlighted the various aspects of the annual Autumn Moon Festival, Tsui culminated the evening by translating a classical Chinese poem entitled "Quiet Night Thoughts" by Li Bai. The final lines underscore this Fall festival, "I raise my head to view the bright moon, then lower it, thinking of my home village." |
Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA