Rich culture draws tourists

Historical intangible heritage celebration takes place at site of development and modernity, Song Mengxing reports.

Fabulous drum performances were staged on Saturday near Aizhai Bridge, which crosses the Dehang Grand Canyon in Jishou, Hunan province, to start the 2016 Jishou Drum Festival.

Local people of the Miao ethnic group in folk dress played drums placed on stands while dancing cheerfully; the drum team from Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province, beat drums in a solemn way and the music reminded spectators of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), when Xi'an was the capital of China and known as Chang'an.

Artists from Russia, Taiwan, and Yunnan, Zhejiang and Hebei provinces were also invited to celebrate the annual cultural festival, which first started in 2013.

The event, one of Hunan's three folk culture festival brands, aims to help pass on local folk culture and promote tourism in Xiangxi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture, of which Jishou is the capital, featuring natural scenery and unique cultures, the festival's organizers said.

The opening ceremony of this year's festival took place at the Aizhai scenic area, which boasts Aizhai Bridge, the world's highest and longest tunnel-to-tunnel bridge, the Aizhai twisting highway, canyon waterfalls and the Dehang Miao village.

Hosting the ceremony in the area better reflects the beauty of its arts, culture and nature, the organizers said.

Local tourism authorities hope the festival captures the magic of Jishou: two splendid scenes, Aizhai Bridge and Aizhai Highway, built within the past century; local Miao villages' folk customs, preserved for a thousand years; the dramatic scenery of the gorge, inspiring awe for thousands of years.

The festival, which started on Saturday and will run through to Oct 30, also offers visitors special activities to help them understand more about Xiangxi. Tourists are welcome to taste authentic local dishes and walk through the Yuquanxi Grand Gorge.

Zhang Jianyong, former vice-president of Jishou University, said: "The drum festival stimulates us, activates and makes us recall the part of our memory about historical tradition."

The festival uses culture to promote tourism and has achieved excellent results, he added.

Drums were originally used by the Miao ethnic group to enhance troop morale and send strategic orders in battle. Later, the Miao people, who had not developed their own written language, played drums to convey their rich feelings.

"Drums are their love songs and literature," Zhang said.

Xiangxi Miao drum dancing is a national intangible cultural heritage and has become representative of Xiangxi culture, said Liu Zhenyu, Party chief of Jishou, at a news conference held in Beijing on Oct 11 to promote the festival.

He said the drum festival is an important measure that the city takes to promote tourism and local culture in order to overcome poverty.

The city's tourism has developed quickly, boosted by the festival since 2013, the festival's organizers said.

Jishou received some 9.87 million visitors in 2015 and its tourism revenue reached 7.31 billion yuan ($1.09 billion). This year, it welcomed more than 7.8 million tourists by the end of August, with tourism revenue surpassing 5.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year rise of 16.63 percent and 21.03 percent respectively.

The Jishou government also signed a strategic agreement with Showland Group at the news conference in Beijing to jointly develop the Aizhai scenic area. According to the agreement, the two sides will invest at least 3 billion yuan in the tourist destination over the next decade.

Contact the writer at songmengxing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 10/18/2016 page6)