Yangpu celebrates Lantern Festival with cultural diversity
Nearly 10,000 residents and tourists attended a traditional celebration in downtown Shanghai which included lantern shows and cultural heritage showcases for the Lantern Festival on Friday.
Hundreds of performers in 25 teams, including some expats, paraded through the Sujiatun Road in Yangpu District. They performed lion and dragon dances, stilt-walking, face changing and acrobatics along with other traditional shows.
Five teams of cultural heritage masters from Jinshan, Minhang, Chongming and Pudong New Area presented folk dances and rolling lantern shows along the road, which has been decorated with hundreds of hanging lanterns, mostly made by residents, and Chinese New Year paintings.
These traditional lanterns, also a listed heritage skill, will be illuminated at night Friday and Saturday.
A group of foreign students studying at Tongji University presented a group singing of traditional Chinese songs.
"I'm thrilled to take part in such traditional events and be part of the local community to celebrate the Lantern Festival," said Zaman Hami from Afghanistan, a network engineering freshman with the university and one of the singers.
Victor Bwembya, a freshman from Zambia, dressed himself in traditional Tang jacket for the celebration.
"These Chinese heritages are quite impressive and attractive," he said.
Over a dozen of local heritage skills are displayed along the nearby Fushun Road as part of the celebration. They include cloth painting, egg curving, paper cutting and lantern making, which have been listed as district-level "intangible heritages."
Visitors are also invited to take part in folk cultural activities such as riddles and spring couplet writing on the road.
It has long been a tradition for the community in Yangpu to celebrate the Lantern Festival with various cultural heritages.
These traditional skills were initially brought to the region in early last century by the city's first batch of migrant workers from neighboring provinces who came to work for the factories, textile companies and docks along the riverside area of Yangpu.
They brought the traditions and customs from their hometowns and provinces to the annual celebrations.
The Siping Road Sub-district has held such celebrations since 2005.