Ganqiu Festival celebrated in Huayuan of Hunan

A grand ceremony was held in Biancheng Chadong Scenic Area of Huayuan, a county of Central China's Hunan Province, on August 15, 2022 to mark the 120th anniversary of the birth of Shen Congwen (1902-1988), a celebrated Chinese author and scholar best known for examining regional cultural heritage in literature, and the opening of the 2022 China (Huayuan) Ganqiu Festival of the Miao ethnic group. The Ganqiu (literally, catching up with the autumn) Festival is one of the biggest traditional festivals for people of the Miao ethnic group in Huayuan. It celebrates a good harvest and promotes group dating between young men and women.

The festival, which involves singing and dancing performances, ritual ceremonies, and sports and entertainment, fully demonstrates the religious and folk culture of the Miao ethnic group. With social and economic development, the festival has absorbed some traditional cultural and sports activities like martial arts, lion and dragon dances, and interactions between young men and women. It was inscribed onto the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) world intangible cultural heritage list in 2016. It is the oldest and the most ecologically traditional festival of the Miao ethnic group in Huayuan and a leading symbol of the Miao people's historical and cultural deposit.

With the publication of Shen's novel “The Border Town” in 1934, Chadong, which changed its name into Biancheng in 2005, became widely known by people at home and from abroad. Biancheng literally means a border town.

Today, the Ganqiu Festival of the Miao ethnic group has become one of the top brands for Huayuan to demonstrate its efforts to promote ethnic unity and common prosperity, deepen opening-up, and strengthen exchanges as well as cooperation with the world. The celebration activity was divided into three parts: welcoming autumn, worshiping autumn and celebrating autumn.

People of the Miao ethnic group performed a wide range of traditional artistic shows like drum dances, autumn-worshiping and Miao-style martial arts. There were also young Miao women who showed their deep love of the nature via ethnic songs.

A dragon dance team from the No. 3 Huayuan Middle School also performed.

The celebration of the Ganqiu Festival has become an important occasion on which people of the Miao ethnic group convey their gratitude to nature for a fine harvest, and to the nation for the improvements in their living standards.