Vietnam’s Mid-Autumn Festival, or Tết Trung Thu, brings together families to celebrate the harvest. Children eat sweet mooncakes and light lanterns as beacons for prosperity and good fortune. “Vietnam being a lot more rural with a lot of agriculture, it’s like, ‘All right, the parents have done their bountiful harvest; now we can kind of give the kids a little bit of time back,’” says Diana Pham-Crain, co-owner of Bao Toan Kitchen & Bar with her mother and sisters.
Pham-Crain speaks of fond memories of celebrating the festival as a child with her family at the Buddhist temple, Chùa Chánh Tâm, which her grandparents founded in Memphis, one of the first in the city. Now, thanks to Pham-Crain’s mother Karina Pham’s efforts, the festival is much bigger, hosting an annual Mid-Autumn Festival at Crosstown Concourse since 2017. This year’s honors 50 years of the Vietnamese community in the Crosstown neighborhood. “It was really her goal to be able to provide a little bit of insight into the Vietnamese culture [to the Memphis community],” Pham-Crain says. “[The Mid-Autumn Festival] is particularly special; of all the Vietnamese holidays, it’s most about celebrating family and your kids.”
And for Pham and her daughters, these Mid-Autumn Festivals at Crosstown have also been in homage to Pham’s parents, whose first date was on Mid-Autumn Festival. “It’s why this festival particularly is special and important to us,” Pham-Crain says.
This upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival, a partnership between Crosstown Concourse, Crosstown Arts, and Pham, will extend beyond the typical one-day event — that’ll take place on Saturday, October 4th, with lion dances, folk dances face paintings, a community fashion show, and complimentary mooncakes. This year has a full lineup of events this month, showing off various aspects of Vietnamese culture, from religion to cuisine to film.
One such event will take Memphians on a tour of Chùa Chánh Tâm, before continuing on to Viet Hoa Market, where guests will learn of the market’s history and ingredients essential to Vietnamese cuisine. The tour concludes with a cooking demonstration and a shared meal in the Church Health Teaching Kitchen at Crosstown Concourse.
Later in the month, the festival closes with a Dharma Talk with Thích Pháp Hòa, a world-renowned Buddhist monk and abbot, joined by Reverend Jason Turner, senior pastor of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, and Tom Shadyac, filmmaker and Memphis Rox founder. Find a full schedule of events and purchase tickets here.
Crosstown Arts Film Series presents Ink & Linda, Crosstown Arts Theater, Thursday, October 2, 7-9 p.m., $5.
Mid-Autumn Festival, Central Atrium, Crosstown Concourse, Saturday, October 4, 6-9 p.m., free.
Frightober Film Series: The Ancestral, Crosstown Arts Theater, Tuesday, October 14, 7-9 p.m., free.
An Afternoon of Meditation and Vietnamese Culinary Culture, Chùa Chánh Tâm, Saturday, October 18, 3-7 p.m., $60.
Dharma Talk with Thích Pháp Hòa, Crosstown Arts Theater, Thursday, October 23, 6 p.m., Free.