Mid-Autumn Festival Dice Game 2022

Date:
September 8, 2022

In the afternoon of September 8, celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Manila Xiamen International School held a dice game for the students. Students from all grades gathered at the school gym, sitting together with their classmates around the prizes and dice bowls and waiting excitedly for the games to begin. After Mr. Raymond Meris, the Middle Years Program (MYP) Coordinator, introduced the rules of the dice game, the sounds of the dices rolling filled the large gym.

The dice game is a traditional game played as part of the celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival, and this custom is related to a hero named Zheng Chenggong. It is believed that more than 300 years ago, Zheng Chenggong stationed his troops in Xiamen, and even though his soldiers were full of heroic spirits, homesickness was inevitable. Therefore, soldiers played this game every August 15 of the lunar calendar when the moon was complete. This was to encourage them during the war periods. It was invented by one of the subordinates of Zheng Chenggong to relieve the soldiers. Later on, this game was spread and modified, by handing it down from generation to generation. Today, the dice game is an exciting and unique custom of Xiamen that our students look forward to annually.