Dezhou festival shows off its handicrafts, fighting crickets

A festival featuring handicrafts, other intangible cultural heritage and the fascinating local sport of cricket fighting opened on Sept 16 in Ningjin county, in Dezhou city, in East China's Shandong province.

The two-day Dezhou Intangible Cultural Heritage Festival and the Ninth China (Ningjin) Cricket Culture Expo displayed various traditional arts and crafts – such as paper-cutting and liquor.

In particular, Ningjin's claim to fame is its crickets which are widely said to be large, colorful, resilient and fierce. Moreover, they've won many prizes at national cricket fighting contests.

Sun Haidong, deputy director of the publicity department of Ningjin county, said the event aimed to promote local intangible cultural heritage and its popular activities with crickets to a wider audience.

The cricket market in Ningjin is bustling from August to October every year, attracting tens of thousands of buyers from more than 10 provinces and municipalities and cities – including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Jiangsu.

According to some statistics, some 20,000 people are involved per day in the county's cricket trading market with a daily turnover of over 3 million yuan ($411,721) and an annual turnover of about 300 million yuan.

The booming cricket market has also boosted the development of related industries, such as tourism, transportation, catering, accommodation and cricket-shaped utensils, creating jobs for more than 45,000 people.

Ningjin has one national intangible cultural heritage item, four provincial ones, 15 municipal ones and 43 county-level ones. (Edited by Fan Yuanyuan)