2023 Hunan International Cultural Tourism Festival kicks off in Miluo City
2023-06-21
2,300 years ago, when Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet of the State of Chu during the Warring States Period (475-221BC), realized the decline of Chu was beyond recovery, but he could no longer save it, he threw himself into the Miluo River and died for his beloved homeland on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. To commemorate this patriotic poet, the customs of holding dragon boat races and making zongzi has been passed down for thousands of years.
This event was held at the Miluo International Dragon Boat Race Center with thousands of guests and spectators gathered on the banks of the Miluo River.
The opening ceremony was divided into three parts of “Opening the Door to Welcome Guests”, “Setting Sail”, and “Creating the Future”. These segments were linked together through the integration of culture and tourism, as well as themes related to Qu Yuan and song and dance dramas.
The event began with the Changle Taige (acrobatic lift ) performance. At the scene, the original historical musical “Nine Songs” premiered, which focused on the “last night of Qu Yuan’s life” and transformed the literary aesthetics of “The Songs of Chu” into a visually stunning stage production. The performance featured elements of Hunan culture, traditional fisherman’s songs, mountain songs, and the unique poetic rhythms of Chu, creating a vivid image of Qu Yuan.
More than 2300 years ago, Qu Yuan, the first great patriotic poet in Chinese history and the “ancestor of Chinese poetry”, roamed and explored on the banks of the Miluo River, questioning the universe, and left some classic poems for the ages.
Miluo is where Qu Yuan’s romantic poetry originated from and where his cultural heritage has been passed down. It is known as the “origin of the Dragon Boat Festival and the hometown of dragon boat races and poetry”.
In recent years, Miluo has continued to deepen cooperation between universities and the local government, having established partnerships with 35 universities nationwide to jointly build industry-university-research bases. Such initiatives serve to promote the deep integration of culture, tourism and education, while driving the development of integrated cultural tourism through targeted think-tanks and research efforts.
At the event, a plaque award ceremony for industry-university-research training bases was also held. Representatives from 10 universities, including Tongji University and Central South University, presented plaques to officials of the Miluo government to jointly built the “industry-university-research training base”.
The Hunan International Cultural Tourism Festival serves as an important platform to showcase the rich cultural heritage and booming tourism industry of Hunan Province. This year’s festival aims to enhance Hunan’s tourism brands and promote the high-quality growth of Yueyang’s cultural tourism sector.
As part of the grand event, a variety of themed activities will also be held, such as “Our Festival, Dragon Boat Festival” celebrations, the 2023 Miluo River International Dragon Boat Invitation Tournament, the “Water Sacrificial Ceremony”, the academic seminar on “Qu Yuan’s spirit and era values”, and the 2023 China (Hunan)-US Economic and Trade Promotion Conference.
