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Southeast Guizhou Festivals
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- Updated:
- Oct 26, 2009;
- by:
- China Highlights;
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- 9
Lusheng Festival
The original purpose of the Lusheng Festival was to provide an opportunity for courtship among young people, but today the Lusheng Festival has become a much more general annual celebration, though the courtship ritual is still at the heart of the Lusheng Festival.
Mothers accompany their daughters to the festival, the daughters done up in their very best Lusheng costumes, which is a festival costume ornately embroidered and adorned with much silver jewelry (a hip-hopper would be envious of this much bling-bling!).
Dong New Year
Dong New Year is a traditional festival for the Dong Ethnic People living in southeast Guizhou. The date for that occasion varies according to regions but it commonly falls on the period from 1st day of the eleventh lunar month to the 11th day. However, there are exceptions and in some particular villages, the festival takes place in the tenth month. The reason for beginning the year at that time is that it is the time after autumn harvest. In another word, this is the time for rest and relaxation after a year’s toil.
The Dong New Year is a very important occasion for the Dong Ethnic people as the New Year Festival to the Han Chinese. Days before the New Year, Dong people make new clothes, clean their houses, make glutinous rice cakes, slaughter pigs, cattle for feasts. On the even of the New Year, the Dong ethnic people usually prepare a course of dish called” cold dish”, which is cooked with bean curd and home mage vinegar. People expose the cooked dish to the cold air and let it frozen. The “cold dish” is the sacrifice to ancestors.
Dong New Year in Dong Villages in 72 Villages Area of Rongjiang Region
Date: between the late tenth month to the early eleventh month
Celebrations: Lushen show and Bull Fighting
Northern Dong Singing Parties
Singing parties are important occasions for young Dong people to get to know each other and to date their lovers. Dong people have several singing parties throughout the year. The Northern Dong Singing Parties are the ones mainly attended by young Dong people from the northern Miao and Dong Prefecture in Southeastern Guizhou.
Miao New Year
According to Miao custom, the tenth lunar month is the beginning of a new year. Therefore the Miao New Year festival, the most important festival for Miao people, is usually celebrated around this time. However, the exact date varies each year and is only disclosed one or two months in advance. Regular updates can be found on our website as the festival approaches.
The celebration of the Miao New Year in Leishan, Guizhou Province is the grandest among Miao festivities. During the event tourists can enjoy watching enchanting Miao customs come alive through various kinds of ethnic activities. These include the festival parade that features Miao girls and women in traditional Miao dress, the traditional music of the Lusheng (a kind of musical instrument made of bamboo), bullfights, horseracing, and of course, lots of singing and dancing.
Bullfight
Lots of Villages in the Miao & Dong Autonomous Prefecture in Southeastern Guizhou (southeastern Guizhou for short) regularly hold bullfight competition every year. The bulls for the bullfight do not take part in the plough or some other work in fields.
New Harvest Festival
The New Harvest Festival is an important festival that Miao and Dong people celebrate at the end of summer and beginning of autumn (different villages celebrate the day at different time). People use bud seeds or the new harvested glutinous rice as sacrifice to worship their ancestors. On the day of the festival, people get dressed up, take their presents along and lead their bulls to go to the host village (the village which is celebrating the festival). After the host worships the ancestors, they have a big harvest dinner. On the second day, people watch bullfight and bird fight and race horses. They have Lusheng dance. At dusk, young people will sing musical dialogues in antiphonal style. The celebration will last until the dusk of the third day.
Gushe Festival
Gushe Festival, also called Guzang Festival, is one of the most ceremonious traditional festivals among the Miao people in the region of Leigong and Moon (yueliang in Chinese) mountains. It is held once every 13 years in the tiger year and it usually lasts for seven days. People kill ox to worship their ancestors during the festival.
