Festivals

The Firecracker Dragon Festival in Binyang 

Honored as "China's Carnival", the Firecracker Dragon Festival, which falls on the 11th day of the first month of the Lunar New Year, was inscribed into the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2008.  

It is an original local festival celebrated by both the ethnic Han and the Zhuang people of the region. It consists of various cultural activities such as a night show, fireworks, firecracker dragons, an expo on intangible cultural heritages, a 100-family banquet and exhibitions of calligraphy, painting and photos. 

Every firecracker dragon has a length of 30 to 40 meters, which is regarded as a holy symbol of the Chinese New Year. 

With dragons, drums, eight categories of musical instruments used in ancient music, flower baskets and torches, the Binyang-style dragon dance is a derivative of traditional dragon dances in which performers held dragons on poles and walked through floods of firecrackers. 

Bare-chested performers hold dragons on poles as people march and dance on the streets. While the dragon dance is going on, firecrackers thrown by local residents and visitors are set off. This custom has a tradition of over 1,000 years in Binyang.

The Guilin Gongcheng Peachblossom Festival 

The Guilin Gongcheng Peachblossom Festival is held in the Daling Mountain in Xiling Township of the Gongcheng Yao autonomous county from February to March every year. There is a series of cultural performances and activities during the festival including exhibitions of local food such as Gongcheng oil-tea, calligraphies and artistic antiques, ethnic songs and dances and thrush bird fighting. 

The Gexu Singing Festival in Wuming county

The opening ceremony of the Gexu Singing Festival falls on the third day of the third month of the Chinese lunar calendar every year in Wuming County. The singing festival attracts huge crowds from home and abroad. The festival consists of many activities such as a 1,000-person bamboo battle, a singing contest, snatching the fireworks, a speed competition on board shoes and embroidered ball throwing. The festival has been held 18 times since 1985. It changed its name from Gejie to Gexu in 2003 and added many ethnic projects of the Zhuang people such as a singing contest of mountain songs and the bamboo battle.