Singapore’s Chinatown Mid-Autumn Festival Makes It Long-Awaited Comeback

After two years of virtual celebrations, Chinatown’s well-loved and much-anticipated Chinatown Mid-Autumn Festival returns to the streets this year from starting last week to 25 September 2022 with its iconic light-up and an exciting line-up of festivities. For the first time, the festival will include a food fair which will see Smith Street transformed into a nostalgic, bustling bazaar offering street-style dining.

For this year’s signature light-up, visitors can keep a lookout for larger-than-life lantern sculptures showcasing, for the first time, the characteristics of mooncakes from Singapore’s main Chinese dialect groups: Cantonese, Hainanese, Hakka, Hokkien and Teochew. The sculptures can be found adorning each street with the centrepiece, a towering 10m diorama of candy-coloured snow skin mooncakes and playful jade rabbits, at Eu Tong Sen Street. Designed to pay homage to the traditions preserved by the forefathers of Singapore’s Chinese community, the light-up celebrates the unique cultural heritage of each Chinese dialect group and how they continue to be united by the shared custom of celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival.

This year’s festival encourages harmony and reunion among family members, old and young. It aims to promote Chinese culture among locals from all walks of life, especially the youth, highlighting the spirit of a multi-racial and multi-cultural Singapore in which festivals are celebrated across cultures.

Throughout the duration of the festival, a dynamic line-up of activities awaits visitors, encouraging all in Singapore and international travellers alike to spend time with family and loved ones in vibrant Chinatown. In addition to the first-ever food fair, there will also be a trade fair, located at the open space in front of People’s Park Complex which rounds out the festive streetside offerings.

Visitors can also look forward to family-friendly activities like free weekend stage shows happening at Kreta Ayer Square over five weekends, and the ever-popular all-ages Lantern Painting Competition.

However, in line with plans for Singapore to become a sustainable urban destination, members of the public will be offered the chance to bring home and recycle the street lanterns as part of the festival’s ‘Adopt a Lantern’ campaign.