A festival celebrating falcon culture and local heritage drew travelers from across the country to Akqi County in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region this weekend with cultural parades and traditional performances.
Akqi County is widely known as a homeland of falconry, as well as a key site for preserving and passing down the falconry techniques of the local Kyrgyz ethnic group.
Held from Saturday to Monday, the festival launched the fourth Falcon Culture and Tourism Season.
The opening ceremony featured a parade of 13 themed contingents, each showcasing a different aspect of local culture. Some participants marched in traditional attire displaying local embroidery, while others on animals to highlight the season's traditional equestrian and camel competitions.
A mass rendition of the local heroic epic "Manas" was also staged, as well as live music and storytelling accompanied by local instruments -- in particular, the Kumuz, a three-stringed wooden lute.
The performances, in addition to local hospitality, left a profound impression on out-of-town guests.
"People here are warm and welcoming, and the performance is truly spectacular," said Luo Xinpeng, a visitor from south China's Guangdong Province.
Throughout the three-day celebrations, attendees also enjoyed intangible cultural heritage demonstrations, hands-on folk experiences and sports competitions.
High-spirited falcon culture festival kicks off tourism season in Kirgiz county
The newly upgraded Huanggang Port connecting the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Chinese mainland recorded more than 3.44 million inbound and outbound passenger trips in its first month of operation, averaging 114,000 per day -- a 120 percent year-on-year increase, as Shenzhen prepares for the 2026 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Week.
With the event approaching, all 25 APEC-dedicated channels across Shenzhen's ports in south China have been opened to facilitate the entry of participants and media from APEC member economies.
The upgraded Huanggang Port is operating smoothly, with its single-day passenger flow recently hitting the highest level since 2019.
At Huanggang Port, travelers now only need to queue once and present their documents once to complete immigration procedures for both sides.
"Usually it takes about one minute to go through customs on both sides. My fastest time was 36 seconds," said a passenger from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
Huanggang Port is the only 24-hour land passenger port between Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
Since November, Shenzhen's ports have opened a total of 25 APEC-dedicated inspection channels. Among them, the Huanggang Border Inspection Station has processed 14,000 trips of foreign nationals from APEC economies, a month-on-month increase of 102 percent. "Facing the continuous high passenger flow, the Huanggang Border Inspection Station has strengthened early warning and analysis, continuously enhanced communication and coordination with the Hong Kong side, cross-border operating units, and foreign affairs departments, and reinforced our multilingual service team to ensure efficient and smooth customs clearance," said Yang Huan, staff member at the Huanggang Border Inspection Station.
As China's largest single port building and the world's largest land port complex, the facility covers a total floor area of 689,700 square meters, featuring four underground and five above-ground floors.
The original Huanggang Port, which opened in 1989, was China's first large-scale land port with 24-hour clearance. Reconstruction on the original site began in 2019 to meet the surging demand for cross-border passage.
Upgraded Huanggang Port handles over 3.44 million passenger trips in first month
