This Chinese equivalent to the West's Harvest Moon Festival is one of the loveliest nights of the year. Part of the celebrations commemorate a 14th-Century uprising against the Mongols when rebels wrote the call to revolt on pieces of paper and embedded them in cakes which they smuggled to compatriots. Along with the cakes, shops sell coloured Chinese paper lanterns in the shapes of animals, and more recently, in the shapes of aeroplanes and space ships. On this family occasion parents allow children to stay up late, and take them to high vantage points such as The Peak to light their lanterns and watch the huge autumn moon rise before eating their moon cakes.
Public parks are ablaze with many thousands of lanterns in all colours and sizes and shapes.