MalaysiaMalaysia Mid-Autumn coloring pages
2 free pages to print, taken from the eleven in Once Upon a Mid-Autumn Moon in Malaysia. Open a picture and print it.
Lantern painters and the kampung moon
Malaysia’s mooncake and lantern festival is a made thing — lanterns painted by hand, shadow play behind a lit screen, kueh laid out in rows. The pictures follow the making rather than the eating: a lantern painter at work, a shadow play mid-performance, three friends managing one lantern between them, a dragon at Malacca.
The other half is manners, in the way children actually meet them: being a polite guest, counting out the right change, cousins who help without being asked, a visitor who is homesick and what the family does about it. The last page is a lantern parade of many lands, which is the whole eight-country set in one picture and a reasonable place to finish.
Lanterns, shadows and muhibbah
Malaysia's Mooncake and Lantern Festival falls on the Mid-Autumn full moon, the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month. Communities hold lantern walks, night markets and mooncake gifting, and the festival is known for friends of Malay, Chinese, Indian and other backgrounds enjoying the lanterns side by side. Muhibbah is the word for that goodwill.
A mouse-deer in the parade
Color both pages, then ask the child to draw Sang Kancil, the little mouse-deer from the first page's story, somewhere in the parade on the second. Where would he walk, and which lantern would he carry? Then ask what Aziz and Devi each learned about being small or new in a crowd.
