Millennium-old grottoes in China's Hebei see tourism boom during National Day holiday

A series of events, including themed exhibitions and night tours, have been rolled out at the thousand-year-old grottoes in Handan City, north China's Hebei Province, during the week-long National Day holiday that began on Thursday, creating an all-day cultural and tourism experience for visitors.

With a rich cultural heritage dating back nearly 1,500 years to the Northern Qi Dynasty (550–577), the Xiangtangshan Grottoes have drawn on their distinctive cultural identity to bring the stories of the grottoes to life through visual and immersive presentations.

The events include night tours, exhibitions of lost cultural relics and on Cizhou Kiln, the largest folk kiln system in ancient northern China, and quiz challenges, enabling visitors to experience the charm of a thousand-year-old kiln while touring the millennium-old grottoes.

In addition, the live-action performances are paired with themed art exhibitions, offering an all-day experience where visitors can study the grottoes by day and enjoy live performances by night.

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Saturday that he was approaching a decision on Iran amid escalating tensions and fresh military deployment to the Middle East.

The remarks come as the U.S. military bolsters its regional posture, with the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier strike group heading toward the Middle East, according to previous U.S. media reports.

Meanwhile, Ali Balali, an adviser to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force, said on Saturday that Iran's domestic weapons production supply chain remains entirely intact.

Iran opened a military training center in Tehran on the same day, designed to prepare Iranian citizens to counter potential ground attacks by the United States and Israel, according to officials overseeing the program.