As the Mid-Autumn Festival approaches, academic graduate students from the School gathered at the First Canteen of ECUST on the afternoon of September 12th to participate in the "Learn to Make Mooncakes, Welcome the Mid-Autumn Festival" event. The event aimed to allow new graduate students to personally experience traditional Chinese culture, enhance their understanding and identification with ethnic traditional culture, and build a platform for interaction and communication between Chinese and international graduate students in the Business School. The event attracted more than twenty Chinese and international students to participate.

Before the event began, Ms. Dong Haiyi, the director of the Graduate Education Management Center of the School, introduced the origins of the Mid-Autumn Festival to the students. Students gained a deeper understanding of the origins of mooncakes, traditional flavors, and production techniques through watching videos, reading materials, and interactive communication.

To better understand the process of making mooncakes, professional pastry chef Mr. Lin was arranged to provide operational guidance at the event site, with Mr. Wu Xiaofei providing a full English explanation throughout. Under Mr. Lin's guidance, students worked in teams, cooperated with each other, some were responsible for kneading the dough, some for wrapping the filling, and some for shaping. Everyone learned from and helped each other to complete beautiful mooncakes together.

The final stage of the event was tasting and judging the mooncakes. Each group displayed their homemade mooncakes on the exhibition table, and everyone tried and evaluated mooncakes of different flavors. In the end, Mr. Lin selected several of the most popular mooncakes based on criteria such as appearance, taste, and creativity.

International students expressed that every step from selecting ingredients, making pastry, rolling dough to wrapping fillings and molding with molds was full of fun and challenges. They not only experienced the charm of traditional Chinese culture but also deepened their understanding and interest in Chinese culinary culture. They would send photos and videos of the event to friends and relatives abroad, sharing the joy of celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival in China. A student from Kazakhstan, Aika, said that she has been studying and living in China for four years, but this was her first time making mooncakes by hand, which was very surprising. Although she has tasted mooncakes of different flavors before, the ones she made herself were the most delicious. She was very grateful to the school for organizing this event.

The "Learn to Make Mooncakes, Welcome the Mid-Autumn Festival" event allowed graduate students from the Business School to experience the customs of traditional Chinese festivals in their busy study schedule, playing a positive role in promoting Chinese traditional culture and enhancing the friendship between Chinese and international students.