The China Media Group's 2026 Mid-Autumn Festival Gala will air at 20:00 Beijing Time on Friday for audiences worldwide, with this year's event taking place in Huainan City, east China's Anhui Province, and the full program lineup officially released.
This year's gala continues to draw on the aesthetics of traditional Chinese culture, integrating the country's cultural heritage and the spirit of the times into its performances.
2026 marks the 20th anniversary of the inclusion of the Mid-Autumn Festival in China's first national list of intangible cultural heritage. The gala will center on the cultural significance of the Mid-Autumn moon and feature traditional art forms including Huagudeng folk dance, shadow puppetry and tofu banquets, presented in more interactive and contemporary ways.
The gala also highlights several major milestones in 2026, including the first year of China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030), the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, the 90th anniversary of the victory of the Red Army's Long March and the 70th anniversary of the founding of China's space program. Technology will also play a prominent role. The gala will extend its stage into the sky, with 8,000 drones forming images of major Chinese engineering achievements during some performances.
AI-generated content will also be incorporated into the programs, while AI technology will bring historical photographs to life.
The gala will also feature international collaborations. British singer Sarah Brightman and Chinese singer Zhou Shen will perform The Music of the Night from musical The Phantom of the Opera together. Chinese pipa player Fang Jinlong, Croatian cellist Ana Rucner and German pianist Oskar Roman Jezior will also perform a musical dialogue combining Chinese and Western instruments.
The gala will be broadcast live globally on various CMG TV channels, including CCTV-1, CCTV-3 and CCTV-4, as well as on new media and overseas social media platforms. It will also air simultaneously on mainstream media outlets in other countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese lunar calendar. Around China, people celebrate the day by gathering for moon-gazing, eating mooncakes, and lighting colorful lanterns.
Line-up for CMG Mid-Autumn gala revealed
Decades after American educator Ronald Sakolsky first taught students and helped fight desertification in China, his story of cross-cultural connection took center stage at the White House.
Speaking at a welcome banquet hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday, Chinese President Xi Jinping pointed to Sakolsky’s decades-long journey as proof that the foundation of China-U.S. relations lies with its people.
More than two decades ago, Sakolsky supported a Chinese woman, Yin Yuzhen, in planting trees to combat desertification. When he returned to China earlier this year, he found that the trees he planted had flourished, as had the friendships he forged with the students he taught.
For Sakolsky, teaching was never just a job. It was a lifelong commitment to memory, devotion, and bridging cultures across oceans.
"A good teacher consumes him or herself to light the way for others. The love of students and the giving to others comes from the heart. And the reward comes years later when they still call you coach, when they remember your quotes, when they tell you it was because of you they are the person they are today," he said.
Inside the classroom at Luoyang Foreign Language School, where Sakolsky used to teach, the years apart dissolved. They cracked inside jokes, laughing over old memories and the days when they’d run to the basketball court after class.
In those fleeting moments, middle-aged adults became kids again, gathered around the man who expanded their horizons.
"When I come back 27 years later, and I see all of you, I know that I have done my job. I planted the seed with each and every one of you, and you have grown into trees. Once you are my student, you are my child forever," said Sakolsky.
Sakolsky was not the only teacher who crossed the Pacific that year, or the years after. Since the late 1990s, hundreds of teachers have travelled eastward and westward, bearing a message no textbook could deliver.
"These teachers planted the seeds of hope for China-US friendship in the hearts of their students. As President Xi Jinping has said, the story of China-US relations is written by the people," said Shen Xuesong, Minister Counselor of Chinese embassy in United States.
These teachers planted a simple, tenacious hope that two cultures oceans apart could still, somehow, call each other family.
"The formal exchange may have ended but the connection certainly did not, and I think that is the real power of international education, because you never know where the impact of one relationship, one teacher, or one student might lead," said Chris Fray, a former U.S. exchange teacher who served the fall semester during 1998 to 1999.
"People like us who experienced both cultures can have deeper understanding and sometimes I will also explain and help the people around me to understand this kind of situation better," said Xue Jianru, a former Chinese exchange teacher.
That simple urge to reach out rather than pull back has expanded today.
In November 2023, China proposed inviting 50,000 young Americans to visit and study in the country over the next five years.
By May 2026, more than 50,000 students across the 50 U.S. states had arrived, reaching the goal two and a half years ahead of schedule.
"At a time when the global and domestic U.S. situation can seem very bleak, it is key to remember that people-to-people exchange is important and can, bit by bit, individual by individual, change the world around us," said Margot Landman, deputy vice president of programs of the National Committee on US-China Relations.
"America and China can work together if you want to. Start to listen to the other side. I'm not saying believe the other side, I'm saying listen to the other side. Then combine the two and make your own decisions," said Sakolsky.
In today’s digital age, Sakolsky’s story with China and its people has rippled far beyond offline encounters. Shared across social media, it gave millions of Americans another window into the warmth of ordinary Chinese people.
In 1999, Sakolsky helped plant trees in the desert, and nurtured young minds in the classroom. But little did he know that in every conversation and gesture, he was sowing a different kind of seed.
"My part in the story is very small. But the message is very big. If a Chinese woman living in the desert, can share a story with an American teacher from the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, then the countries can share. And that's the message I will take back, that China is ready to rebuild the bridge. Is America ready? I believe so. Then let's start," said Sakolsky.
American educator Ronald Sakolsky reflects on decades of grassroots US-China ties
