FILCOM IN XIAMEN CELEBRATES MID-AUTUMN FESTIVAL 

• • • • • • • Top left photo: ConGen Flores addressing the crowd during the Mid-Autumn Festival
            • Top right photo: OFWs gather in their respective tables before the start of the Bo Bing Games

The Filipino Community in Fujian Province celebrated the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival on 31 August 2014. Also known as Harvest Festival or Mooncake Festival, this festival is an occasion for family reunion, thanksgiving and prayer. The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the 8th month of the Chinese lunar calendar, and in this year it fell on August 28.

 In his brief remarks, Consul General Julius Caesar A. Flores stated that this annual event provides an excellent opportunity for Filipinos and their friends to observe a Fujian custom which generates to strengthen bonds of friendship, understanding and camaraderie.

One of the highlights of this festival is the Bo Bing game, a traditional southern Fujian dice game invented by pirate-cum-patriot Koxinga originally as a gambling game to relieve homesickness among his troops with prizes ranging from tiny cookies to medium and large mooncakes, with one grand prize – the Zhuangyuan cake, the biggest and best mooncake.

This is an excellent initiative spearheaded by FAX which brought together 120 Filipinos and their Chinese and foreign friends from Fujian province. It is also one of FAX’s fundraising events for 2014. Xiamen PCG staff joined the Filipino community in this popular annual Fujian festival.

The event attracted more than 120 OFWs and their foreign friends from Fujian Province.  END