Chinese over the moon during Mid-Autumn Festival

BEIJING, Sept. 21 (Xinhua)-- Twenty-six years after being separated from his deaf-mute brother, Qian Heming was at a loss for words on reuniting with him during this year's Mid-Autumn Festival, when people eat mooncakes, enjoy the sight of the moon and meet family members.

"Over 20 years ago, my brother went out to work in cities with our fellow villagers, but soon lost touch with them and us," said Qian, a native of Anqing City, east China's Anhui Province.

"He cannot speak or write, so we did not know what he went through," Qian added.

REUNION

The reunion of Qian with his brother was realized amid a nationwide campaign of "Tuanyuan," meaning reunion in Chinese, which was launched in January to help those gone missing or kidnapped as children return home.

On Aug. 24, a manager -- surnamed Wang -- of a machinery company in Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province, turned to a local police station for help. A deaf-mute worker who had been with his company for years had no identity card and could not get vaccinated against COVID-19. The company unsuccessfully tried to help the employee look for his relatives.

The police station found the information about the employee similar to that provided by Qian in Anhui and contacted him. One week later, Qian arrived in Wuhan, but the worker was on a business trip.

Police confirmed Qian and the deaf-mute man were brothers through a DNA test. On Saturday, Qian again arrived in Wuhan to take him back to their hometown for a reunion.

Through gestures, Qian's excited brother told him and others that it was the first Mid-Autumn Festival he would spend with his family in 26 years.

Reunion is a permanent theme for the Mid-Autumn Festival. However, many frontline workers such as railway and hospital staff keep working.

"Please wear masks and remember to show your health QR code when exiting the station," Yan Shuaikang, a passenger service clerk in uniform, reminded passengers on a megaphone, at the Changting south railway station, east China's Fujian Province. Several cities in the province were recently hit by a resurgence of local COVID-19 infections.

Yan, an intern who graduated from college this year, chose to be a volunteer instead of spending the holiday resting.

"Recently, many young people have been supporting anti-epidemic efforts in affected areas. I work at the railway station to ensure passengers follow epidemic prevention measures, which is also my contribution to the fight against the outbreak," said Yan, a native of Pingdingshan City, Henan Province.

Using his first salary, he bought a package of goods, such as moon cakes and local dried bean curd speciality products and sent them by mail to his parents more than 1,000 km away.

RELAXATION

Cinemas, resorts and a variety of online and offline cultural events have provided Chinese citizens the means to relax amid regular epidemic control measures while enjoying the three-day festival.

A popular venue for tourists is the Universal Beijing Resort which opened to the public Monday, coinciding with the festival holiday. The resort, spread over four square km, includes the highly anticipated Universal Studios Beijing theme park, the Universal CityWalk, and two hotels.

All rooms have been booked for about a week, according to a source at a hotel in the resort.

Domestic disaster movie "Cloudy Mountain" continued to top the Chinese mainland box office on Monday, figures from the China Movie Data Information Network showed Tuesday. The film is about a father-and-son duo's journey to save a newly-built tunnel and a town of 160,000 residents from the perils of natural disasters.

"The Mid-Autumn festival is not the traditional golden season of the film market, but this year, we feel the pure beauty of moving family affection," said film critic Ma Shengnan, adding the drama movies screened during the festival made people see emotional expressions as bright as the moon.

Beijing's Temple of Heaven, or Tiantan Park, used by ancient Chinese emperors to offer sacrifices to heaven, held an online live broadcast event Tuesday evening to invite netizens to appreciate the moon and a special traditional concert on the festival.

REVITALIZATION

The remote county of Shenchi in north China's coal-rich province of Shanxi has been producing moon cakes for the last 500 years and the local skill is on the provincial intangible cultural heritage list.

Two months before the Mid-Autumn Festival, the moon cake production enterprises here stepped on the gas, with nearly 10,000 people or one-tenth of the county's population engaged in moon cake processing. Making moon cakes becomes a source of income for locals.

Wang Longyi, 62, works in a local moon cake factory. "I'm mainly responsible for preparing fillings, and I can earn 160 yuan (about 25 U.S. dollars) in one day," Wang said. The work earns him 30,000 to 40,000 yuan a year.

Dong Hai, secretary general of the Shenchi county moon cake association, said the county sells 150 million moon cakes a year, with an output value of 375 million yuan.

This year's Mid-Autumn Festival is also the first after the country announced the elimination of absolute poverty and the completion of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. The country is advancing rural vitalization on all fronts.

A bumper grain harvest is good news for rural vitalization. After reaping a bumper summer harvest this year, China is expecting a good autumn harvest.

In Jiuyan Village, Miluo City of central China's Hunan Province, harvesters are working in paddy fields. Xie Guangxin, who is in charge of the local Daomantian cooperative, said with good weather and careful management this year, his 80-hectare high-quality rice field is expecting a good harvest, with an estimated output of 650,000 kg and a revenue of 1.9 million yuan.

The cooperative is helping other villagers plant high-quality rice varieties.

"Consumers are increasingly fond of good quality rice, so growing delicious rice is the key," said Gao Ru, a local agricultural technician.