People across China are celebrating in diverse ways the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival which falls on September 17 this year.
A well-preserved traditional custom, "burning a brick tower," also a national intangible cultural heritage, has been staged in Ji'an City, east China's Jiangxi Province.
Every year, people from Jiaxi Village build a tower with bricks and tiles, and fill it with straws, firewood and tree leaves. They light the fire at the bottom of the tower, and the flames pour out of the tower immediately, lighting up the sky.
Locals usually admire the moon and eat mooncakes while enjoying the fire to celebrate the festival.
"Every year, I go back to my hometown here to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival in the traditional way, which brings me a great sense of happiness," said Zhan Danwen, a local villager. For hundreds of years, picking fruits and vegetables has been one of the activities for Tujia ethnic people to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, with a good blessing of harvest for the year.
This year in Jianshi County, Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, central China's Hubei Province, tourists joined the celebration of locals by picking eggplants, chili peppers and corns in the garden, with torches lighting the night sky.
Located in Xinzhou city in north China's Shanxi Province, the Mount Wutai Scenic Spot saw soaring numbers of tourists from Aug 22 to Sept 7, an increase of 22 percent year on year.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is a significant traditional Chinese festival celebrated on the night when the moon reaches its fullest and brightest on the 15th day of the eighth month on the Chinese lunar calendar.
During the festival, family members would come together, share mooncakes while admiring the moon, and light up lanterns to enjoy the happiness of family reunion.
Celebrations across China begin for Mid-Autumn Festival
Chinese President Xi Jinping called for joint efforts to guide China-Russia relations to a new height in 2025 so that the stability and resilience of their bilateral relationship can better cope with the uncertainties of a challenging global environment, when talking with Russian President Vladimir Putin via video link on Tuesday.
Xi expressed his pleasure at meeting with Putin ahead of the Chinese New Year, which falls on Jan 29 this year, describing it as a time for reflection and planning.
"At the turn of the year, it is a moment to review achievements and chart new plans," he said.
Xi noted that this year marks the 80th anniversary of the victories of the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, the Soviet Union's Great Patriotic War and the World Anti-Fascist War, as well as the 80th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations (UN).
"China and Russia should take the opportunities presented by the anniversaries to jointly safeguard the U.N.-centered international system, and the hard-won fruits of victory in World War II. Both countries, as founding members of the UN and permanent members of the Security Council, must uphold their institutional rights," he said.
"In the new year, I'm willing to work with you to continue guiding China-Russia relations to a new height in 2025, to respond to external uncertainties with the stability and resilience of China-Russia ties, to boost the development and prosperity of both countries, and to uphold international fairness and justice," Xi said.
Putin said he agrees with Xi's views, saying that Russia-China cooperation is built on a broad commonality of national interests.
"Our perspectives on how to properly handle relations between major powers are increasingly aligned. Our bilateral relationship is built on friendship, mutual trust, support, equality and mutual benefit. It is independent and unaffected by domestic political factors and the current international situation," he said.
Xi calls for strengthening China-Russia ties to address global uncertainties