Miao People Celebrate Ganqiu Festival

The photo, taken on August 20, shows the Miao people perform drum dance at Ronghu Village, Shuanglong Town, Huayuan County. On the same day, the village held an intangible cultural heritage performance to celebrate the Ganqiu Festival of Miao ethnic group. Traditional folk cultural celebrations such as performing drum dance, Miao dance and stunts, and singing folk songs in an antiphonal style, attracted numerous tourists. Ganqiu (literally, catching up with autumn) is one of the biggest festivals for Miao people. (Photo/Long Enze)

Background information:

The Ganqiu Festival is one of the grandest and most traditional celebrations for the Miao ethnic group in China. It originated from Huayuan County in western Hunan Province, and is popular also in the counties of Fenghuang, Jishou, Luxi and a few others. It falls on the day of Liqiu, the 13th out of the 24 solar terms, representing the start of autumn. 

This year, the festival lasts from August 8 to September 23. 

During Ganqiu Festival, people take a day off from working, and hope for a good upcoming harvest by celebrating it in advance. The other theme of Ganqiu is offering young people a chance to mingle and express admiration for each other, still borrowing, and honoring, how people in ancient times would do it: singing and riding swings that could hold eight people at a time.

Ganqiu, with its activities, was enlisted as a national intangible culture in 2014, and a UNESCO intangible culture later in 2016.

Translator: Xiao Juan