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Pingding Yu Festival

Updated: 2020-08-19

The Pingding Yu Festival is a folk belief and folk customs event that evolved from an ancient sacrificial ceremony for rain into being a festival to pray for good luck and happiness.

The festival is held at the Bojing Temple Fair in Pingding county in Yangquan city, in North China's Shanxi province, in the seventh month of each lunar year.

Locals usually start preparations for the festival on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month by worshipping the gods of the grain in farm fields, cleaning local temples and preparing offerings.

They also set up a stage to perform opera and sing on the 21st day of the same lunar month, to welcome the festival the next day with various folk custom shows and worship and sacrificial rituals.

The festival showcases local people's pursuit of harmony between humanity and nature in the past and features local unique folk customs.