Students celebrate Moon Fest

She loaded her rubber band onto the wooden gun and aimed it toward one of the CDs labeled "HIT ME." With the cultural music blaring from above, she fired and scored.\nFreshman Jade Yamamoto chose her prize from the box with a smile on her face. She was one of more than 250 people to play the rubber band game and many others Saturday night at Moon Fest in McNutt Dining Hall.\nThe Japanese Student Association and Taiwanese Student Association combined their efforts and funds to put on a festival for all IU students to learn about and celebrate the Moon Fest.\nJohn Hsu, president of the TWSA, said he and junior Shunsuke Baba, president of the JSA, wanted to help the entire IU community learn more about the Moon Fest, which is officially Tuesday.\nThe Moon Fest is a celebration which can be compared to the American Thanksgiving, as it promotes family gathering. The history of Moon Fest lies in a story passed from generation to generation, according to Hsu.\n"A long time ago, there was a queen who took a pill from her husband, the king, and flew to the moon," he said. "Then she stayed there forever."\nHsu said his family would gather to watch the moon and eat moon cakes, the traditional food for the festival, during the holiday. \nThe moon cakes were used as devices to hold secret messages to pass along during the Chinese overthrow of the Mongolians during the Yuan dynasty. Taiwanese moon cakes traditionally have a small message inside of them and are sweet, while Japanese moon cakes do not contain messages and are more rice-based.\nThe evening was filled with cultural shows such as a Japanese dance called bonodori and an ancient Taiwanese bamboo dance, but attendees could also play basic games throughout the evening for prizes such as ring toss, darts with balloons, a dice game and the rubber band shooting game. They also snacked on moon cakes, tea and mochi.\n"We had people come dance with us during the shows, so that was fun," Baba said.\nStudents, adults and young children attended the event which was advertised with flyers on campus and e-newsletters through the Asian Culture Center, which is how Yamamoto heard about the event. She said she came to the event to learn about how different Asian cultures celebrated Moon Fest. \nBaba also said he was pleased at the number of non-Asians that came to the event.\n"I feel it's important to go to these types of events in order to become (knowledgeable) on the customs of other cultures," Yamamoto said. "Also, you can have some fun along the way." \n-- Contact staff writer at Lori Snow at losnow@indiana.edu.