The Hunan Tourism Development Committee announced that, during Dragon Boat (Duanwu) Festival holiday, Hunan had more than 13.1 million tourists, an increase of 21.8% over last year. The tourism revenue totaled over 8 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 29.9%. The tourist numbers and tourism revenue both hit a record high.Colorful Duanwu-themed activities were organized throughout the province.(1) On the bank of the Miluo River, a thousand people recited "Li Sao", literally "Encountering Sorrow”, which was written by famous Chinese poet Qu Yuan, in memory of his 2350th birthday.(2) Twenty dragon boat teams competed on the Miluo River, attracting numerous tourists from home and abroad.(3) Quzi Cultural Park opened to the public on Dragon Boat Festival.(4) A temple fair was staged at Changsha Fiery Palace.(5) A dragon boat invitational tournament was held on the Fuyi River of Langshan Mountain Scenic Spot, jointly organized by Hunan’s Xining County and Guangxi’s Ziyuan County.(6) Zongzi making and a live-action performance of Listening to Sounds of Nature were presented at Huangdu Dong Cultural Village, Tongdao Dong Autonomous County, Huaihua.The traditional tourist attractions were crowded with visitors during Duanwu Festival holiday, including Wulingyuan Scenic Spot, Yueyang Tower-Junshan Island, Shaoshan, Yuelu Mountain, Hengshan Mountain, Langshan Mountain, and Fenghuang Ancient Town. The tourist arrivals at 74 Hunan provincially-supervised tourist attractions increased 17% year on year to 2,678,700. Ticket revenue increased 47.3% to 253 million yuan.Short trip and rural tourism were a hit among tourists. A large number of tourists experienced farm work and culture, country music tent campfire party, and parent-child garden party.Translator: Xiao Juan

2017-05-28 15:26 View：891

The show “What Do Pandas Dream About?” premiered at the Hunan Puppet and Shadow Art Protection and Inheritance Center on the evening of May 24. It was jointly presented by performers from the Center and the French ensemble Doulce Mémoire. The only Chinese-French co-produced play during the 2017 Festival Croisements offers a subtle blend of Chinese art of shadow play and western Renaissance music. The show tells Little Panda’s encounters with a monkey, a crocodile and a phoenix during its first journey, calling for people’s thinking on ecological environment protection. Translator: Xiao Juan

2017-05-26 15:25 View：1133

The World Parkour Competition will take place from May 27 to 29 in Zhangjaijie Tianmen Mountain National Forest Park. It is the first of its kind in China.    The competition consists of two events: speed race and skills challenge.    Twenty top traceurs from Europe, North America, and Oceania and 30 selected Chinese parkour players will participate in. The Chinese candidates are required to attend qualifying round that will be held on May 27, and the top four have chance to go to the next round.    The preliminaries and finals of speed race will be held on May 28; the preliminaries and finals of skills challenge on May 29. These races will be aired live on a local TV channel.   The racecourse is designed by Aussie parkour artist Dominic DiTommaso. With a total length of 300 meters, it starts at Tianman Cave and end at the tourist service center. There are 999 steps leading up to the Mountain Cave which is known as the Gateway to Heave. A total of 68 barriers are placed along the steps. The course has a vertical drop of 150 meters.

2017-05-26 15:23 View：1046

Dragon Boat Festival (Duanwu Festival) falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. For thousands of years, the Festival has been characterized by dragon boat racing, and eating Zongzi. This holiday will provide ample chances for all to be involved in celebrations.It is a folk festival widely passed down with a history of over two thousand years, and one of the most important festivals as well. There are various celebrating activities on the day of Dragon Boat Festival, among which eating rice dumplings (Zongzi, the steamed glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves) and dragon boat race are important customs.There will be a 3-day holiday for the coming Dragon Boat Festival, starting from May 28 (Sunday) to May 30 (Tuesday, the Dragon Boat Festival).The Chinese Dragon Boat Festival is a significant holiday celebrated in China, and the one with the longest history. The Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated by boat races in the shape of dragons. Competing teams row their boats forward to a drumbeat racing to reach the finish end first.The boat races during the Dragon Boat Festival are traditional customs to attempts to rescue the patriotic poet Qu Yuan. Qu Yuan drowned on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in 277 B.C. Chinese citizens now throw bamboo leaves filled with cooked rice into the water. Therefore the fish could eat the rice rather than the hero poet. This later on turned into the custom of eating tzung tzu and rice dumplings. The celebration's is a time for protection from evil and disease for the rest of the year. It is done so by different practices such as hanging healthy herbs on the front door, drinking nutritious concoctions, and displaying portraits of evil's nemesis, Chung Kuei. If one manages to stand an egg on it's end at exactly 12：00 noon, the following year will be a lucky one.Dragon Boat race Traditions:At the center of this festival are the dragon boat races. Competing teams drive their colorful dragon boats forward to the rhythm of beating drums. These exciting races were inspired by the villager's valiant attempts to rescue Qu Yuan from the Mi Luo river. This tradition has remained unbroken for centuries.Tzung Tzu:A very popular dish during the Dragon Boat festival is tzung tzu. This tasty dish consists of rice dumplings with meat, peanut, egg yolk, or other fillings wrapped in bamboo leaves. The tradition of tzung tzu is meant to remind us of the village fishermen scattering rice across the water of the Mi Low river in order to appease the river dragons so that they would not devour Qu Yuan.Ay Taso:The time of year of the Dragon Boat Festival, the fifth lunar moon, has more significance than just the story of Qu Yuan. Many Chinese consider this time of year an especially dangerous time when extra efforts must be made to protect their family from illness. Families will hang various herbs, called Ay Tsao, on their door for protection. The drinking of realgar wine is thought to remove poisons from the body. Hsiang Bao are also worn. These sachets contain various fragrant medicinal herbs thought to protect the wearer from illness.

2017-05-25 15:20 View：1223

The photo taken on May 20, 2017 shows volunteers from Longshan Musician Association are singing folk songs (In antiphonal style) with villagers of Kedong Village, Xichehe Town. The Literature and Arts Association of Longshan County recently arranged volunteers to send painting and calligraphy works to and hold folk shows for villagers who are living in old revolutionary areas and poverty-stricken villages. Translator: Xiao Juan

2017-05-21 09:36 View：1283

The training center officially opened that day. It was founded by Pan Qiulian, a county-level heritor of Hua Miao costumes. She will organize classes for Miao women to learn and share the traditional brocade and embroidery skills. The photo taken on May 16, 2017 shows Miao women discuss brocade techniques at a Miao brocade and embroidery training center in Jingzhou Miao and Dong Autonomous County. Translator: Xiao Juan 

2017-05-20 09:31 View：1121

The 2017 Hunan Science and Technology Week was inaugurated on May 20. The Standing Committee Deputy Director of the Hunan Provincial People’s Congress Li Youzhi, and Vice Governor Xiang Lili, addressed the opening ceremony.This event, lasting from May 20 to May 27, is themed with science and technology, and innovation. It will showcase the important outcomes of the targeted poverty alleviation resulted from science and technology, display the new technologies, products, and emerging industrial sectors driven by sci-tech achievement transformation, and latest sci-tech innovation progress and results.Ten activities will be launched during the week, including a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) lecture during the opening ceremony; science and technology night; science popularization contest; intellectual property knowledge contest; innovation and startup series activities; safe and rational drug use popularization; and science and technology popularization in rural areas. Provincial departments, and all the cities and prefecture will organize various activities accordingly.Translator: Pang Yuehui

2017-05-21 09:30 View：1560

Themed “The Maritime Porcelain Road", a porcelain tea ware set made debut at Changsha Tongguan Kiln on May 15, 2017. These porcelains were designed based on Tongguan Kiln relics of Tang Dynasty (618–907), found at a shipwrecked dhow (an ocean-going vessel) in Belitung Island in the western Java Sea in 1998. The tea set, composed of 36 pieces, took Changsha Fuyao Ceramics Art Co., Ltd. 6 months to complete. The design of the set has integrated with traditional techniques of celadon underglaze and utilized bird patterns, vividly recreating the ceramics culture of Tang Dynasty. Translator: Xiao Juan

2017-05-19 09:27 View：949

The Colorful Hunan-China Acrobatics Show was held at Guro Art House in Seoul on May 11, 2017. The show was co-hosted by China's Ministry of Culture and Hunan provincial government, and organized by the China Cultural Center in Seoul, Hunan Culture Department, and the Guro Cultural Consortium.More than 500 people watched the show, including the Minister Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy in South Korea Wang Luxin; Chinese Cultural Counselor to South Korea and Director of China Cultural Center in Seoul Shi Ruilin; and representatives of Chinese and South Korean cultural organizations, as well as Seoul residents.The show integrated straw hat dancing, shoulder ballet, aerial ring dancing, folk singing, and mimicry to illustrate the charm of Chinese variety art and Huxiang culture.After watching the show, a Mexican student exclaimed that she was deeply impressed by it. She noted that it was her first time to see Chinese acrobats perform.Many overseas Chinese came to the show. They enjoyed it and hoped more Chinese cultural activities would come to South Korea.The show is part of the “Chinese Nationalities Culture Season” organized by the China Cultural Center in Seoul. It is also one of the Hunan cultural cooperation programs in 2017.Translator: Xiao Juan

2017-05-14 09:24 View：1025

The Hunan Provincial Government Press Conference on May 16 announced that “Chinese Culture Tour in Hunan” will be held in Changsha and Yueyang during May 20 and May 25, 2017. It is co-organized by the Counsellors’ Office of the State Council, the China Central Institute for Culture and History, and the Hunan Provincial Government.It says that a series of cultural activities will be held, including cultural lectures, calligraphy and painting exhibitions, and art performances for the culture tour.More than 150 top-level calligraphy and painting works will be exhibited in Changsha Museum. More than 70 well-known calligraphers and painters from central and local cultural institutes will exchange views and showcase their skills. Celebrated Pipa performer Wu Yuxia from China National Traditional Orchestra, Kunqu master Cai Zhengren from Shanghai Kun Opera Troupe, and famous singer Liu Yizhen from the PLA Art Troupe will perform together with local performers.The “Chinese Culture Tour”, a large cultural event initiated by the Counsellors’ Office of the State Council and the China Central Institute for Culture and History, is to fully display and promote Chinese outstanding traditional culture from all aspects. It has been staged in Guizhou, Yunnan, Chongqing, Gansu, Xinjiang, and Macao successively since its inception in 2013.Translator: Pang Yuehui

2017-05-17 09:23 View：909