Taijiang Miao Sisters Festival to kick off in Guizhou

Miao people wear traditional costumes to celebrate the Sisters Festival. [Photo by Zhang Kui/provided to eguizhou.gov.cn]

From April 11 to 19, Taijiang county in Southwest China's Guizhou province will come alive with the vibrant hues and rhythmic beats of the ‌Miao Sisters Festival‌, a national intangible cultural heritage event.

This year's festival promises to transcend cultural boundaries, weaving the Miao people's ancient customs with contemporary creativity to showcase Taijiang's ethnic culture and ecological tourism.

Rooted in a centuries-old tradition where Miao youth gathered during farming seasons to court through song and dance, the festival now transforms Taijiang into a stage for unity and innovation.

The opening ceremony will ignite festivities with a ‌"10,000-person costume parade". Attendees can join the ‌"10,000-person chorus along the Wengni River" or marvel at the ‌Miao embroidery competition‌, where artisans stitch folklore into modern fashion for a dazzling runway show.

Sports enthusiasts can cheer for the ‌village basketball association tournament launch or sprint through terraced fields in the ‌"village run‌".

Taijiang has reimagined its cultural legacy through ‌folk-art fashion lines‌ and ‌agri-tourism trails‌, turning villages into living museums. As drumbeats echo between the mountains, the festival honors the Miao's past and charts a future where tradition fuels progress.