China celebrates Mid Autumn Festival

China today celebrated the 3,000 year old traditional Mid-Autumn Day festival to mark the harvest, with the government announcing three-day holiday to let people visit with their families for the occasion.
Mid-Autumn Day is the 15th day of the eighth month on China's lunar calendar.
It is also an occasion for family gatherings featuring lanterns, solving riddles and exchange of mooncakes.
China has declared three day official national holiday.
It is the second most important festival for Chinese after the traditional new year.
In recent years the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) is encouraging people to celebrate the traditional festivals as part of its efforts to increase domestic consumption to reorient the the export driven economy.