Shanxi temple fairs win over younger generations

Photo shows young performers at a scenic area in Gaoyou city, east China's Jiangsu Province. (Photo/Xinhua)

Temple fairs in north China's Shanxi Province are shedding their image as a pastime for the older generation, attracting growing crowds of young visitors with a creative mix of time-honored traditions, fresh concepts, and cutting-edge technologies.

For an increasing number of young Chinese, visiting a temple fair has become a way to celebrate the Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year, unwind, feel a sense of cultural belonging, and discover something truly new.

A Shehuo parade, a traditional performance widely popular in rural areas across China, kicked off in Xugou town, Qingxu county, Taiyuan city. Crowds filled the venue, with children perched on parents' shoulders and young people filming on their phones as performers transformed the venue into an open-air stage.

"Shanxi has many types of Shehuo parades, including Yangge dance, stilt walking, and land boat dance," said Guo Haoran, a Shanxi native born in the 1990s. "The performances vary greatly by region, and many have been listed as national intangible cultural heritages."

In Datong ancient city, the Spring Festival lantern fair drew large crowds during the holiday. Against the backdrop of the ancient city wall, 46 sets of lanterns were displayed. Themed lanterns featuring popular animated characters gave the event a distinctly contemporary edge, and the venue became a hotspot for visitors, particularly young people, to take photos.

Photo shows tourists at a Spring Festival temple fair at Ditan Park in Beijing. (Photo/Xinhua)

At the 12th Taiyuan Temple Fair, held at the city's zoo, stalls offering novel Shanxi-style foods such as vinegar-flavored ice cream, sea buckthorn yogurt, and baijiu-flavored chocolates caught the eye of Wang Lichun, a local resident born after 2000, who had come with her family. Wang described the temple fair as a genuine surprise. "There are so many creative foods to try, and they actually taste great. This is exactly the kind of Spring Festival vibe we young people love."

On the second floor of the intangible cultural heritage art venue at Taiyuan's Zhonglou Street, a popular commercial market area, visitors—many of them young—sat around tables learning paper-cutting under the guidance of inheritors of the craft. They cut intricate horse designs out of paper.

One overseas student, home for the holiday, posted a paper-cut work online, proudly describing it as "a one-of-a-kind limited edition."

The art venue also showcased a selection of local intangible cultural heritage goods. As fashionable Spring Festival souvenirs, they proved particularly popular with younger visitors.

Museums joined the celebration as well. The Taiyuan Northern Qi Dynasty Mural Museum, which features murals dating back to the Northern Qi Dynasty (550-557), developed a series of immersive, interactive activities inspired by horse motifs from its rare murals. "We want visitors to understand the murals and fall in love with cultural relics through hands-on engagement," said Luo Ke, the museum's deputy curator.

Tourists watch a lion dance performance at a scenic area in Foshan city, south China's Guangdong Province. (Photo/Xinhua)

Technology added yet another dimension to this year's Spring Festival. At Taiyuan ancient county, robots in dazzling costumes danced to music, while thousands of drones lit up the night sky, forming patterns such as "calling cards" of Shanxi — the bird-shaped zun of the Marquis of Jin State during the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046–771 BC), the Mengshan Giant Buddha, and the Yongzuo Temple.

This Spring Festival, Shanxi made a deliberate effort to tailor its temple fair experience to younger visitors, weaving light shows, AI-powered interactions and immersive installations into the fabric of traditional celebrations

Meanwhile, by the fifth day of the Chinese New Year, videos tagged with topics like "Shanxi temple fairs" and "authentic Shanxi New Year flavor" had accumulated more than 400 million views on short-video platforms, while footage of popular destinations including Datong ancient city, Xinzhou ancient city, Situ small town, and Zhangbi ancient fort had surpassed 100 billion combined views.