Unicorn, lion and dragon dances are indispensable children’s activities on the Mid-Autumn Festival. The dancer troupes and accompanying children who hold the mid-autumn lanternscreate a joyous atmosphere all around the lanes and streets. Unicorn, lion, and dragon dances symbolize good luck, peace and good omen for families. In addition, in the countryside, young boys and girls often go to the communal house or riverbank to sing Trống quân (a kind of popular local repartee).
The carousel lantern (đèn kéo quân) is a type of lamp that originates from a tale praising filial piety and love for grandparents and parents. The lantern is decorated with familiar images. When the lantern is lit, it rotates and the images’ shadowscreate a seemingly-endless army. The ‘images’ later were replaced withother figures such as doctoral laureates returning home from a successful court exam, four dancing sacred animals, or Buddhist monk Tang Seng and his disciples in Journey to the West. Currently, such villages as Đàn Viên in Hà Nội or Mật Sơn in Thanh Hoá are the existing guardians of this toy.
Red paper lanterns are an easy-to-make toy indispensable in the Mid-Autumn Festival. The lanterns are framed with bamboo laths and covered with paper or coloured pleated paper. They are lit with candles inside for children to carry in the Mid-Autumn night. These lanterns are normally shapedin familiar fruits or animals, such as squash, gourd, rabbit, shrimp, crab, fish, and butterfly.
The Vietnamese people have always placed importance on learning, and the image of a successful doctoral laureate returning home in glory has become embedded in their mind. Wishing for their children and grand-children to do well and succeed academically, people would buy paper doctoral laureatesor stick-fighters and put them in the most important place of the Mid-Autumn banquet. To date, the family of Mrs. Nguyễn Thị Tuyến in Hậu Ái Village (Hà Nội) is the only remaining producer of paper doctoral laureates.