China is both an ancient country with a history as long as 5,000 years and a big family with 56 nationalities. China boasts a variety of unique and attractive festivals thanks to the long history of these nationalities as well as the different natural and cultrual environments in which they live. Many festivals are celebrated national wide, also there are festivals defined in certain area.
| Corban Festival
The Corban Festival, an annual major traditional Islamic festival, falls on the tenth of the twelfth Muslims knock the iron casing drum to celebrate the holiday. It is called Eid-al-Adjha in Arabic.
|
|
| Cheng Chau Festival
The Cheung Chau Festival starts on the 8th day of the Fourth Moon and continues for 4 days. The four-day celebration includes parades, opera performances, and children dressed in colorful costumes.
|
|
| Danu Festival for Yao People
The Danu Festival, also known as the Ancestral Mother festival or the Yao New Year, is one of the grandest traditional festivals of the Yao ethnic group. It falls on the 29th of the fifth lunar month.
|
|
| Spring Festival
Chinese New Year or Spring Festival is the longest and most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is often called the Lunar New Year. In the Gregorian calendar, Chinese New Year falls on different dates each year, a date between January 21 and February 20.
|
|
| Double Third Singing Carnival
Double Third Singing Carnival at the 3rd of the 3rd Lunar Month is the traditional festival for the Zhuang nationality as the ethnic groups is particularly good at singing. The area where they live is known as the “Seas of Songs” or the “siol floored with piano keys.”
|
|
| Dragon Boat Festival
Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, and together with Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival forms one of the three major Chinese holidays. For thousands of years, Duanwu has been marked by eating Zongzi and racing dragon boats.
|
|
| Flowery Mountains Festival
Flowery Mountains Festival between the second and seventh day of the first lunar month, is celebrated by the Miao people mainly living in Yunnan. It is known as the Festival of Treading the Flowery Mountains. The so-called "Flowery Pole" is always the mark of the festival.
|
|
| Double-Seventh Day
Double-Seventh Day is on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month in the Chinese calendar. On that day, people in love like to go to the temple of Matchmaker and pray for their love and the possible marriage in China. People still single will do the same thing to ask their luck of love in the Matchmaker temple. It is considered the Chinese Valentine's Day.
|
|
|
| Double Ninth Festival
The 9th day of the 9th lunar month is the traditional Chongyang Festival, or Double Ninth Festival. It usually falls in October in the Gregorian calendar.
|
|
| Goddess Mazu Festival
Mazu, also spelt Matsu, is the indigenous goddess of the sea who protects fishermen and sailors, and is invoked as the goddess who protects East Asians who are associated with the ocean. Her mortal name is Lin Moniang.The 23rd day of the 3rd lunar month is the birthday of Goddess Mazu, and the 9th day of the 9th lunar month her death anniversary. On both dates the Temple of Mazu is thronged with thousands of pilgrims, who come to pay homage to the goddess.
|
|
| Hungry Ghost Festival
The Ghost Festival is a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month. A solemn holiday, the Ghost Festival represents the connections between the living and the dead, earth and heaven, body and soul.
|
|
| Great Prayer Festival
The Great Prayer Festival, falls on 4th -11th day of the 1st Tibetan month in Tibetan Buddhism. Known as "Monlam" in Tibetan, meaning "prayer", is for the memory of Buddha. It is the grandest religious festival in the year.
|
|
| Hanshi - the Forerunner of Qingming
People will visit their ancestors' graves, sweep the tombs on Qingming Festival. However, in the ancient times, sweeping tombs is the activity of Hanshi(Cold Food)Festival, which was usually one day before the Qingming Festival. Since the date are so close, the two are blended into a unity during the Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) dynasties.
|
|
| Harvest Ceremony
The annual Harvest Ceremony of the Gaoshan people is equivalent to the Spring Festival of the Han people. It falls in the harvest season, usually on the fifth day of the eighth lunar month.
|
|
| Kitchen God Day
Kitchen God, named Zao Jun or Zao Shen, is an important god who dominates the household. It is believed that on the 23rd of the last month in Chinese Lunar Calendar, he returns to Heaven to report the activities of every household over the past year to the Jade Emperor, who then decides to give rewards or punishments.
|
|
| Huijia Festival
Huijia Festival, also called Eldership Festival, is a day that Korean minority express their respect for the aged. The date of the festival varies according to different areas.
|
|
| Laba Festival and the Eight-Treasure Porridge
Laba is celebrated on the eighth day of the 12th lunar morth ,because La in Chinese means the 12th lunar month and Ba means eight. On this day,Labazhou, a kind of rice porridge is traditionally served.
|
|
| Knife-Pole Festival
The annual Kinfe-Pole Festival on the 8th of the second lunar month features a physical contest with a history stretching back to hundreds of year. It is the exclusive and traditional festival of the Lisu ethnic group and aims to memorialize a Han hero who taught the Lisu people how to make a knife.
|
|
| Mid-Autumn Festival
The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, is a popular harvest festival celebrated by Chinese people, dating back over 3,000 years to moon worship in Shang Dynasty. It falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month.
|
|
| Longduan Street Festival of Romances
Longduan Street is a grand festival popular among the Zuangs in Guangnan and Funing areas in Yunnan Province. The festival is held in the third lunar month and lasts for three to five days, during which young people will seek mates. There are also activities including singing, dancing and trading.
|
|
| Qingming Festival
Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb-sweeping Festival, Festival of Pure Brightness, comes around solar April 5 and is celebrated by twenty-five ethnic groups. The festival originated during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770 BC- 221 BC), and has a history of over 2500 years. Although the activities may differ, it invariably centres on sweeping tombs and spring outing.
|
|
| Munao Festival
Munao Festival falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month and lasts for four or five days. Munao Festival was originated from "Munao Mass Dance". It mainly features singing and dancing, hoping to invite happiness and felicity in the coming years.
|
|
| Winter Solstice
As early as 2,500 years ago, about the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC), China had determined the point of Winter Solstice by observing movements of the sun with a sundial. The Northern hemisphere on this day experiences the shortest daytime and longest nighttime. After the Winter Solstice, days will become longer and longer.
|
|
| Miao Dragon Boat Festival
The Han people celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month every year to honor the memory of the patriotic poet Qu Yuan. However, the Miao Dragon Boat Festival held later in the same month.
|
|
| Yuanxiao Festival
Yuanxiao Festival or the Lantern Festival is a traditional Chinese holiday on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, fourteen days after Chinese New Year's Day (around the end of January and the beginning of February). The word yuanxiao denotes the first night of the year with a full moon. On that night, streets and squares in cities and towns are festooned with lanterns of all shapes and sizes.
|
|
| Nadam Fair
In Mongolian, Nadam means recreation or game. The Nadam Fair is a grand gathering of the Mongolian people during the golden period of autumn between July and August. Entertainment includes horseracing, wrestling, archery and dancing and singing.
|
|
|
| Pan Wang Festival
Pan Wang Festival falls on the 16th of the tenth lunar month. King Pan is regarded as the ancestor of the Yao ethnic group. For this reason, the Yao people celebrate this grand traditional festival to pay tribute to their ancestors.
|
|
| Story Behind the Double-Seventh Day
The Double-Seventh Day refers to the seventh day of the seventh month on the Chinese lunar calendar. The day is not as well-known as many other Chinese festivals. But almost everyone in China, young and old, is very familiar with the story behind this festival.
|
|
| Shoton Festival
In the Tibetan language, "Sho" means yogurt and "Ton" means banquet. Therefore, the Shoton Festival is a festival of yogurt banquet. However, as time past, the Shoton Festival becomes a festival of traditional Tibetan operas. It is one of the grandest traditional festivals in Tibet, mainly celebrated in Lhasa and Xigaze.
|
|
|
| Tibetan New Year
The Tibetan New Year is the most important festival in Tibet. It is celebrated in late January or early February at the time of the new moon.
|
|
| The Legend of Dragon Boat Festival
For thousands of years, the tradition of the Dragon Boat Festival has been passed down from one generation to the next. But where did it come from and why did people eat Zongzi and race dragon boats?
|
|
| Tibetan Bathing Festival
The Tibetan Bathing Festival is one of traditional festivals in Tibet. Since it usually lasts for seven days, it is also known as the Bathing Week.
|
|
| Chang O Flees to the Moon - Legend of Mid-Autumn Festival
There are so many variations and adaptations of the Chang'e legend that one can become overwhelmed and utterly confused. However, most legends about Chang'e in Chinese mythology involve some variation of the following elements: Houyi, Chang'e, an elixir of life and the Moon.
|
|
| Third Month Street Fair
The Street Fair is the grandest show of the year for the Bais. Held from the 15th day to the 21st day of the third lunar month every year at the foot of the Mount Diancang Shan, west to the ancient city of Dali, the Bais are holding the festival mainly pray for a good harvest.
|
|
|
| Water Splashing Festival
The Water Splashing Festival is the new year in the Dai Calendar. It is held on April 13 to 18 once a year. It is similar to Thailand's Songkran, three days of unbridled festivities in which everybody gets doused with water. It is also known as the Festival for bathing Lord Buddha.
|
|
| Things for Spring Festival - Meal, Couplets and Paintings
Spring Festival is the most important festival in China. All the traditional festivals in China are based on the Chinese lunar calendar. The Spring Festival marks the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year. There're many things came from the customs of the Spring Festival, for instance, New year meal, couplets and paintings.
|
|
| Yi Torch Festival
On the 24th –26th days of the 6th lunar month, the Yi people will have Yunnan Yi Torch Festival. Many other ethnic groups including Bai, Naxi, Hani, Lahu and Pumi also celebrate the Torch Festival.
|
|
|
