To celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, ICTP-AP has held a gathering party at Zhongguancun Campus, over thirty students signed up for the event and actively took part in this activity.

ICTP-AP has prepared many delicate gifts for the participants, including small pouch filled with sweet Osmanthus flowers. To warm up the atmosphere, we also prepared a dozen of English and Chines riddles for the guests to solve. It’s a tradition for people to solve the riddles during Chinese festivals. 

When the participants are immersed in the joy of solving riddles, we handed out each participant a set of materials for painting plaster rabbit statues. Rabbit God, Tu’erye in Chinese, is a deity of Chinese folk religion unique to Beijing, where his sculptures are traditionally crafted. The fairytale rabbit descended to a plague-stricken world and healed people. For his good deed, he is commemorated with a lovely image and receive thanks every year. Therefore, worshipping Lord Rabbit has become a typical custom observed in Beijing.

After hearing the story, the participants couldn’t wait to start their painting. After their brain-storming imagination, dozens of the plaster sculptures were vividly presented. 

Another tradition of Mid-Autumn Festival is eating mooncakes. Today, participants got the opportunity to make mooncakes by themselves. 

This activity helped the international students better understand Chinese traditional culture and they all felt very relaxed during the whole process, which gave them a break from the digital world and travelled back to thousand years ago to experience the romance of ancient Chinese people. Students from ICTP-AP also enjoyed this activity and they felt more connected to each other after the celebration party.