TAIPEI, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- As Mid-Autumn Festival arrived once again on the 15th day of the eighth month on the Chinese lunar calendar, Yang Ming-quan, who resides in Taipei, called his cousin, thousands of miles away in southwest China's Yunnan Province.

The voice with a familiar accent from across the Taiwan Strait was the deeply-cherished sound Yang wanted to hear during this holiday.

This year, Taiwan shortened the usual three-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday to just a one-day break on Tuesday. However, the festive atmosphere remained undiminished, and longing for reunion still drove people to gather.

Hundreds of Hakka descendants in Taiwan, whose ancestors were from Fujian and Guangdong provinces on the mainland, gathered in Taipei for a grand Mid-Autumn Festival banquet on Monday.

"Hakka people have migrated to Taiwan continuously over the years, but respecting traditions and honoring our ancestors have always been key characteristics of our culture," said Huang Chen-long, deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Hakka General Chamber of Commerce.

Organizing this "grand reunion" during the Mid-Autumn Festival is meant to remind Hakka people in Taiwan of where they came from, Huang said.

The development of Taiwan was closely tied to waves of migration from various corners of the Chinese mainland over generations. While moon-gazing and eating moon cakes are unchanged Mid-Autumn rituals on the island, various types of moon cakes sold in Taiwan, from Guangdong-style lotus seed paste to Suzhou-style flaky crust and Yunnan-style ham, all tell stories of nostalgia.

Liu Hua-cheng, president of the Shandong Association of Kaohsiung City, recalled the Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations of his childhood.

"My parents were both from Qingdao (in east China's Shandong Province). After coming to Taiwan, they lost contact with their relatives back home for a long time. When the Mid-Autumn Festival came, their longing for home intensified," he said. His parents would always face the direction of their homeland and present offerings to their ancestors during the holiday.

The farther away people are from home, the stronger their sense of longing becomes. Lee Cheng-yen, whose ancestral home is in the northwestern Gansu Province, described his hometown as "distant but cherished."

"Taiwan is located on the southeastern coast of China, while my hometown is in the northwestern region of the mainland, thousands of kilometers apart -- that's what makes it distant," Lee said.

Lee's father left Gansu for Taiwan in the 1920s and never returned, but he often spoke to his son about their hometown. "My nostalgia about my hometown is both for the place and for the people, especially my father who has passed away," he said.

Deep connections with ancestral homes on the mainland led to the establishment of many townsmen associations across Taiwan. Today, dozens of them remain active, organizing events during holidays such as the Lunar New Year, Qingming Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival.

For the older generation, these associations were a spiritual home to help alleviate homesickness. Today, they serve as a bridge to maintain blood ties and bring the hearts of people across the Strait closer together.

Although the two sides of the Strait have been separated since 1949, the complete cutoff that once existed between people of Taiwan and their ancestral homes on the mainland is now in the distant past.

This year, Yang Ming-quan, who recently became president of the Taipei Yunnan Association, led a group of Yunnan descendants living in Taiwan back to their hometown shortly ahead of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

"People on both sides of the Strait share the same ancestry and bloodline. The natural closeness we feel when celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival together is undeniable," he said.

Zhu Peng-jun, from a Hakka family in Miaoli, performed a Hakka song at a recent Mid-Autumn Festival gala held in Longyan of Fujian.

"This was my first time visiting a Hakka community on the mainland, and it felt both fresh and familiar," said Zhu.

During the trip, he interacted with several young Hakka people from the mainland. "I could feel the continuity of traditional culture among young people on both sides of the Strait," he said. Enditem

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