Festival surge not just about fun Residents of both the Chinese mainland and Taiwan enjoy themselves in a water-splashing event during ...

Festival surge not just about fun

Residents of both the Chinese mainland and Taiwan enjoy themselves in a water-splashing event during a cross-Straits cultural exchange in Shishi, Fujian province, last year. (Photo: China Daily)

BEIJING, Feb. 22 (Xinhuanet) --？The surge of festivals across China may have implications beyond people filling their daily lives with special occasions, experts say.

By the end of last year, more than 10,000 festivals were celebrated by various ethnic groups in China, twice as many as several years ago, according to a survey conducted by the Jiangsu Festivals and Events Association, a nonprofit organization administrated by Jiangsu province's cultural affairs department.

In addition to national and traditional celebrations, such as Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) and Lantern Festival, many local ethnic celebrations are held in China. There is, for example, Water Splash Festival observed by the Dai ethnic group, mainly in Southwest China's multiethnic Yunnan province, and Bull Fighting Festival, celebrated by the Dong people.

"Most of the 10,000 festivals are set up by local governments for commercial purposes, such as Strawberry Festival, Beer Festival and Crayfish Festival," said Lu Xueyi, a sociology professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"It is easy to set up the occasions ... if an agreement is reached by several villages," he said. "That's why there are so many kinds of festivals across the country."

Local governments promote the occasions for economic benefit, Lu said. "Festivals and events are giant commercial advertisements for local governments."

Many such celebrations began emerging in the 1980s, after China adopted reforms and its opening-up policy, Lu said. They were also ways to develop local economy and help people shake off poverty.

But there are downsides to the trend, according to some experts.

"Festivals have become a tool for some local governments to get money," said Zhou Xiaozheng, a professor at the sociology department of the Renmin University of China.

"While they can provide tax revenue, they can also provide opportunities for corruption."

As time passes, some traditional festivals are also changing, and not always for the better, experts said.

During Monihei, a traditional celebration in May of the Wa ethnic group in Yunnan province, people try to paste a natural black dye on each other's face as a blessing for health and luck. But in recent years, the celebration has evolved into a form of "kiss orgy" in some cases, according to a report of China News Service on Thursday, citing a female tourist returning from Yunnan province.According to rumors circulating on micro blogs and Internet chat forums, the Chuxiong Yi autonomous prefecture in Yunnan province was considering applying for world cultural heritage status for a "Breast-Touching Festival". During the three-day festival in the lunar month of July, young women would expose one breast for any man to touch. Those whose breasts were touched would take that as an auspicious sign. Later, however, the Chuxiong government rejected the posts as purely fabricated.

"Some government officials in backward areas have not received adequate education and become money-oriented regardless of the tradition and law," Lu said. "This is a main reason such absurd things could happen."

Invited to tour a county in Hubei province, Lu found the county government was trying to set up a festival on a nearby mountain, called Lulin, the site of an ancient uprising against government that later became synonymous with robbing the rich to give to the poor.

Later, the government gave up the idea at Lu's suggestion. "It is obviously inappropriate to propagate such a culture in modern society," Lu said.

While conceding that the number of festivals has been increasing rapidly in recent years, Zhang Chengdong, secretary-general of the Jiangsu Festivals and Events Association, said this trend would be checked.

"The central government has issued regulations to limit the expansion of festivals, so, hopefully, the number will not increase too much in the next two to three years," he said.

"Local government, the main driving force behind the growing number, should gradually withdraw from directly participating in economic activities and make providing public service its main function," said Lu. "This is the key to checking the increase in festivals."

(Source: China Daily)