Zhangzhou city in eastern China's Fujian Province celebrated the Duanwu Festival (the Dragon Boat Festival) on Saturday with a grand water parade featuring traditional performances.
At Minnan Water Town, a tourism and leisure block highlighting Minnan architecture and traditions, several bamboo rafts formed a long "dragon boat" on water in the evening, with each raft serving as a stage.
Performances on the rafts ranged from thrilling fire stunts and fire pot show, to Budaixi (glove puppetry), a national intangible cultural heritage of the city.
On the river banks, dancers performed the traditional fire dragon dance, a common form of Duanwu Festival celebration in Minnan culture, symbolizing good fortune.
Following another Minnan Duanwu Festival tradition, families also hang special red lanterns bearing their ancestral hall names or words of blessings on dragon boats for the river parade.
The Duanwu Festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar. This year, the festival holiday began on Friday and runs through Sunday.
Water parade celebrates Dragon Boat Festival in east China
