Summer Wrap-Up & Hello, Mid-Autumn Festival! 🌕🍖🍂

Summer has officially wrapped up at Fun Taiwan Kids, and what a summer it was!

It was a super busy season for us, with multiple camps welcoming kids and families from around the world to Taiwan. From Mandarin lessons and cultural experiences to afternoons spent playing, exploring, and making new friends, we hope everyone who visited Taiwan this summer had an amazing time – and took home lots of wonderful memories.

And now, just like that Fall.. or … the Mid-Autumn Festival is here! 🌕

I’ve always loved Mid-Autumn Festival because, to me, it marks the arrival of fall.

If you’re in the US, fall means getting ready for pumpkin spice, watching everything turn orange and getting ready for Halloween. 🎃🍁

In Taiwan, things take a slightly different turn. Everything seems to become a little more brownish — think mooncakes, grilled meat, and, of course, BBQ! 😂

So… why does everyone BBQ during Mid-Autumn Festival?

If you’ve visited Taiwan around this time of year, you may have noticed something funny: everyone is suddenly having a BBQ.

And here’s the interesting part — BBQ wasn’t actually an ancient Mid-Autumn tradition in Taiwan. Growing up in Taiwan in the 70s, that really wasn’t a thing. All I remembered was eating mooncake, pomelo, and watching the full moon with my family. Oh that and enjoying the break from school. That’s IT!

Rumor has it that the tradition really took off after a very successful BBQ sauce commercial in the 1980s, which famously featured families enjoying BBQ together during Mid-Autumn Festival. Apparently, one brand’s campaign ignited an advertisement battle between different brands of BBQ sauce. Kind of like how Coca Cola and Pepsi were going at it via TV commercial in the 80s. And somehow the advertisement from different brands worked. Over the years, BBQ became associated with the holiday itself.

If you can read Chinese – here’s a good article about how the tradition of BBQ started in Taiwan.

Mid-Autumn Festival = family gathering + mooncakes + pomelos + BBQ. 🌕🥮🍖

For kids in Taiwan, Mid-Autumn can be especially fun. Families often get together for a big outdoor or balcony BBQ, kids run around with cousins and friends, everyone eats far too much, and of course, there are mooncakes and pomelos to finish things off.

This is also a great time to visit Taiwan. The weather has really cooled off, temperature dropped, and the humidity is a little bit under control.

So, as we say goodbye to summer and welcome the cooler days ahead, we want to wish all of our Fun Taiwan Kids families a very happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Thank you for spending part of your summer with us in Taiwan. We hope you had a wonderful time exploring, learning, playing, and living here — and we hope to see you again soon!

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! 🌕🍖

And yes… if you’re in Taiwan this weekend, you’ll probably smell BBQ everywhere. 😉