Boyan, a Han culture association in Paris, has dedicated over a decade to promoting Chinese culture in France, yet it still faces challenges due to funding issues.

With five days until the Mid-Autumn Festival — a Chinese celebration of the full moon and family reunion — a Carrefour supermarket in the northern suburbs of Paris was alive with festive decor. Shelves were stocked with a variety of mooncakes, the festival’s signature pastries, while nearby posters featuring moon motifs, sky lanterns, and symbols of togetherness added to the holiday spirit.

Xie Sijia and her two teammates had already been waiting by a poster for nearly two hours, fully dressed in elaborate costumes — their hair accessories and makeup perfectly matching the green and crimson hues of their Hanfu, an umbrella term for traditional or traditionally inspired Chinese clothing. The Hanfu Xie and her colleagues wore mimic the attire of the feitian (Flying Goddess) whose image discovered on the wall paintings at Dunhuang. 

However, there wasn’t much for them to do. Carrefour’s French executives were running late, so after one final run-through of their dance moves, the trio quietly took their positions on stage, waiting for the performance to begin.

Xie, the captain of Association Boyan's dance team, and her two teammates were invited to perform as a warm-up act for a Mid-Autumn Festival promotional event aimed at the local Asian community. Meanwhile, the association's president, Zhong Yueru, was tasked with recording the entire performance, capturing photos for a prompt update on the association's social media.

This year marks Zhong's 17th year in France. A decade ago, she founded Boyan as a non-profit cultural organization, dedicated to promoting Chinese culture in France.

Over the past ten years, Boyan has grown into the largest cultural organization of its kind in Paris, with nearly 500 members. Surprisingly, despite being a Chinese culture association, the participants aren’t limited to Chinese or people of Chinese descent—around 30% of its members are French.

Xie and her team’s performance was set to music from a traditional poem celebrating the Lantern Festival, a Chinese holiday marking the first full moon after the Lunar New Year. The music felt out of season, but the dancers moved gracefully, and the stage, surrounded by posters in French, English, Chinese, and Vietnamese, served as a cultural bridge, reimagining the Mid-Autumn Festival through a distinctly French lens. 

Xie hesitated during the final move, showing a brief flash of embarrassment. Afterward, still frustrated, she said, “The floor was so slippery that I couldn’t get it right.”

However, the audience—Carrefour executives and vendors—didn’t seem to mind, offering polite applause as the dancers left the stage to the suited businesspeople.

The team retreated to a cluttered staff office, eating their delayed lunch of cold Vietnamese spring rolls from paper plates. Zhong arrived afterward with a suitcase of Hanfu carefully selected for other staff members to try on for the occasion. She had eaten outside, pairing her spring rolls with a glass of red wine while networking and eyeing potential business deals.

Boyan’s dance team is performing at a Carrefour supermarket in the northern suburbs of Paris