‘This is what we fight with’: Chinatown celebrates Mid-Autumn Festival amid battle against Sixers’ arena proposal

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Between 7,000 and 8,000 people turned out Saturday for Chinatown’s Mid-Autumn Festival, a celebration of family, community and harvest.

“It’s a time for Chinatown as a community to really come out, see each other, celebrate this wonderful, precious community,” said Cinthya Hioe, communications manager at Asian Americans United, the non-profit that organized the event for the 29th year. Hioe said about 300 volunteers helped coordinate the event.

This year’s event comes amid a community-wide struggle for Chinatown’s existence, organizers said. Residents are fighting against the Philadelphia 76ers’ proposal to build an arena — dubbed 76 Place — near Chinatown at 10th and Market streets. On Wednesday, Mayor Cherelle Parker officially backed the $1.55 billion arena proposal and said a series of town halls would be held in the coming weeks to inform residents about the details of the agreement.

Debbie Wei, a member of the Save Chinatown Coalition, said Parker’s announcement “was a little disappointing,” but the battle is far from over.

“We’ve always been up against the mayor, we’ve always been up against City Council,” she said. “We’re not done. There’s lots of tools in our toolbox. They are trying to ram legislation through, and even if legislation goes through, they still have a lot to do before they can get shovels in the ground, and we have a lot to do to stop them.”

Wei founded the Mid-Autumn Festival in 1996 with her husband and five middle school students who were homesick for the holiday traditions practiced in China. Before that, she said, “there was nothing to mark this holiday,” which is celebrated during the full Harvest Moon in countries across Asia.

“We had to fight to reclaim this culturally and to nurture it in the community,” she said. “The crowds here, the energy, is a testament to how this community sustains culture and sustains identity for so many people in this area.”

On Saturday, attendees of all ages enjoyed a variety of entertainment and activities, including painting, calligraphy, games, performances and more.

For attendee and event volunteer Ken Hung, a high school teacher in the Philadelphia School District, the event was a reminder of the continued importance of Chinatown — and the threat that he said the arena poses to its existence.

Hung, who is Taiwanese American, said his kids grew up coming to Chinatown, a place where Asian Americans are celebrated and centered in a way that was not available to him as a kid. His daughter was also one of the more than 300 volunteers who helped coordinate the festival Saturday.

“I worry with the possible building of the Sixers arena, what that’s going to do,” he said. “I do feel partly a sense of sorrow, because I’m like, ‘Will this be one of the last few years that not just me, but my children and my students will be able to enjoy this gathering?’”

Hioe said the significance of the festival resonates beyond the day itself.

“I want folks to know that we celebrate Chinatown as a community in big ways like this, right? And folks can see us, and we’re really visible today,” she said. “But we also are worthy of being celebrated and seen in our regular daily lives, because this community is a living, breathing, moving community full of people and families, and there’s a heart here that you can’t find anywhere else, and I think that is worth being celebrated and worth being seen, even in the everyday.”

Wei said she was “very happy” Saturday just to see all the people in attendance at the festival.

“What you’ll see down here today … sometimes you see anger, but mostly you see joy, because this is what we fight with, this community, it’s its sense of purpose, its sense of its love, the love that people have for this community,” Wei said.