On September 13^th, the third annual Tacoma Moon Festival was held at Chinese Reconciliation Park and was a great success. The support and participation of volunteers was instrumental in the production of the festival. Students taking Chinese from Gig Harbor High School and Peninsula High School were put to work managing booths, pulling carriages, and setting up the attractions.

Kari Thorsen, a junior at Peninsula High school, is a veteran volunteer. “I helped out at the festival last year and had a really good experience so I wanted to do it again this year. I always invite my friends to get more people to come and be interested in Chinese culture.” For other volunteers such as McKenzie Hensley, a freshman at Gig Harbor High School, this was their first time at the festival. “I took Chinese because I wanted to try something different. So far it’s been hard but it’s really fun. I enjoyed volunteering at the festival.”

Nicholas Long, a sophomore at Gig Harbor High School, also added, “I think I really benefitted from volunteering at the festival. I felt like I was helping the community when I came here. It definitely taught me more about Chinese culture, which gives learning the language more insight. But it was cool to see the other performances like the Korean drum team.”

The Chinese Reconciliation Park in Tacoma was erected in close collaboration with the Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation. The foundation was created by David Murdoch after he discovered the “Tacoma Method”, the way the entire Chinese populace was forced out of Tacoma in 1885. Murdoch initiated the reconciliation process by writing a letter to the Tacoma City Council on August 22, 1991. This resulted in Resolution No. 32415, in which the City Council acknowledged that the Chinese expulsion was a most reprehensible occurrence of racial discrimination, and began the construction of the park.

The Tacoma Moon Festival is held annually at the Chinese Reconciliation Park and exhibits numerous performances of poetry, singing, dancing, and story telling. The festival not only showcases Chinese culture, but the colorful cultures of the Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese communities that enrich Tacoma today.