Star-Shaped Lanterns and Sticky Fingers
The first thing you notice isn’t the lanterns themselves — it’s the candle wax. Tiny drops of it on the pavement, on children’s shoes, on the edges of cardboard boxes repurposed as lantern handles. In Hanoi’s Old Quarter on the nights leading up to Tết Trung Thu, the ground tells you where the parade has been.
Vietnam’s Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month — September 25, 2026 — and unlike its counterparts across East Asia, this one belongs to the kids. Not in a marketing sense. In the sense that the entire evening revolves around children carrying homemade or store-bought lanterns through their neighborhoods, trailing wax and excitement behind them.
Where the Lanterns Come From
Hàng Mã Street is the answer, at least in Hanoi. Starting about two weeks before the festival, this narrow lane in the Old Quarter becomes almost impassable — stalls spill onto the road with star lanterns (đèn ông sao), carp-shaped ones, butterfly designs, and increasingly, LED-powered versions that flash in patterns no traditional artisan intended.
The classic đèn ông sao is a five-pointed star made with red cellophane stretched over a bamboo frame. They cost somewhere between 20,000 and 80,000 VND depending on size — roughly one to three US dollars. The expensive ones have better frames. Whether the cellophane lasts the night is another question.
In Ho Chi Minh City, the equivalent is Lương Nhữ Học Street in District 5. The lantern-making tradition here goes back generations, tied to the Chinese-Vietnamese community in the Chợ Lớn area. The crowds peak between 7 and 10 PM on weekends, and by ‘peak’ I mean you’ll be shuffling sideways through a corridor of hanging lanterns with someone’s elbow in your ribs.
The Parade Itself
There’s no single organized parade route — that’s what makes it charming and slightly chaotic. As the sun goes down on September 25, kids appear on the streets carrying their lanterns. Some neighborhoods organize a procession. Others just have clusters of children wandering between houses, showing off their stars.
The atmosphere is closer to Halloween trick-or-treating than to a formal festival procession. Families set up small altars outside their homes with fruit trays — pomelo is the big one, symbolic of fullness and reunion — and mooncakes. Kids stop, look, sometimes get handed a piece of fruit or candy.
Lion Dances at Street Level
The múa lân troupes are mostly teenagers and young men, and they’re loud. Drums, cymbals, and a papier-mâché lion head that bobs and weaves through the crowd. The belief is that the lion’s dance drives away bad luck, but the practical effect is that it drives away any hope of a quiet evening.
In Hanoi, the lion dance teams roam the Old Quarter streets. In HCMC, they tend to concentrate around District 5 and District 1. Some are quite good — athletic, coordinated, the lion head snapping convincingly. Others are clearly three kids who found a lion costume and a drum. Both versions are worth watching.
Shops and restaurants often hire troupes to perform outside their doors, which means you’ll hear the drumming from blocks away. Follow the sound if you want to find one. Or don’t — they’ll find you.
Mooncakes: The Gift Economy
Vietnamese mooncakes — bánh trung thu — come in two basic forms. Bánh nướng is baked, golden-brown, with a dense filling. Bánh dẻo is made from sticky rice flour, white and soft, with a lighter texture. Fillings run from lotus seed paste with salted egg yolk (the classic) to durian, green tea, taro, and various combinations that change every year as bakeries try to outdo each other.
The mooncake market in Vietnam is as much about the packaging as the cake. Elaborate gift boxes start appearing in bakeries and hotel lobbies from early September. They’re exchanged between business associates, given to bosses, sent to relatives. The social obligation aspect is real — if someone gives you a fancy mooncake box, you’re probably expected to reciprocate.
For visitors, the interesting ones are from local bakeries rather than hotel brands. A single cake from a street vendor might be 30,000-50,000 VND. A gift box from a premium bakery could run 500,000 VND or more. The street vendor version is usually better for actually eating.
The Parts Nobody Warns You About
Hàng Mã Street during peak hours — especially the weekend before the festival — is genuinely overwhelming. The crowd density approaches uncomfortable levels, particularly between 7 and 9 PM. Pickpocketing happens. Keep your phone in a front pocket and your bag in front of you.
September weather in northern Vietnam means heat and humidity, with a decent chance of rain. Hanoi in late September averages around 30°C with afternoon thunderstorms that can appear fast. A folding umbrella is more practical than a raincoat — you’ll want the ventilation.
The festival itself is one evening, but the lead-up is where the real atmosphere lives. If you arrive on September 25 expecting two weeks of festivities, you’ll find the lantern markets already packing up. Aim for September 18-24 for the market experience, and stay through the 25th for the actual night.
Also worth knowing: Tết Trung Thu is not a public holiday in Vietnam. Banks, offices, and shops operate normally. This means the festival atmosphere is concentrated in the evenings — during the day, it’s just a regular Thursday.
Getting There and Getting Around
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are the two main cities for experiencing the festival, though smaller cities and rural areas celebrate too — often with a more intimate, less touristy feel.
For flights and accommodation, booking through Trip.com or Agoda usually turns up reasonable rates for Vietnam hotels. September is shoulder season, so prices aren’t at peak, but the Old Quarter area in Hanoi fills up. Book at least two weeks ahead if you want to be walking distance from Hàng Mã.
Within the cities, grab taxis (Grab is the app you want) or just walk. The festival areas in both cities are compact enough to cover on foot, and you’ll want to be on foot anyway — the streets around Hàng Mã are closed to traffic on the busiest evenings.
If you want a structured experience, KLOOK and KKday run guided walking tours through the Old Quarter during the festival period, some including mooncake-making workshops. I haven’t done one personally, but they solve the problem of not knowing where to go if it’s your first time.
A Bowl of Chè at Midnight
The festival winds down late. By 11 PM or so, the lantern flames are mostly out, the lion dance drums have stopped, and the streets are littered with cellophane scraps and mooncake boxes. The cleanup crews come through fast.
But the chè stalls stay open — sweet Vietnamese dessert soups with beans, tapioca, coconut milk, whatever combination the vendor decided on that day. I ended up at one near the corner of Hàng Mã and Hàng Lược, sitting on a plastic stool that was definitely designed for someone smaller, eating something green and sweet that I couldn’t identify. The woman running the stall had already packed up most of her lantern inventory and switched back to her regular chè operation.
She didn’t seem sentimental about the festival ending. Just another September.
