Residents of Anshang Village, Fufeng county in Shaanxi Province attend the opening ceremony of the week-long folk art festival, which kicked off last Friday.

A week-long folk art festival being held in Anshang Village, Fufeng county in Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province kicked off last Friday, drawing over 30,000 Chinese and overseas visitors on the opening day.

The festival, organized by local farmers, is the first of its kind in the history ofNorthwest China, and is aimed at promoting and discovering traditional culture and training folk artists.

Lively performances included local opera, dance and music by two private universities fromXi’an, capital ofShaanxi.

Visitors to the village can enjoy exhibitions in its newly built Chou-Chin Folk Art Gallery, featuring traditional Chinese architecture and a courtyard.

The gallery consists of 10 exhibition rooms showcasing folk art and crafts from the western part of Shaanxi Province, including paper cutting, clay sculpture, woodblock printing, lacquer painting, shadow puppets, ladle masks, wheat straw pictures, cloth-work, embroidery, farmer paintings, replicas of 3,000-year-old bronze ware, traditional Chinese ink-and-water painting and calligraphy.

Anshang residents make their living in the well-knownLandofBronze Culture, which boasts a 3,000-year history. Local people have a fine tradition of hand-made art for home decoration and gifts for various occasions.

By living and working together with American Global Volunteers and hosting other American visitors in the past seven years, the farmers have exposed themselves to Western culture, greatly changing their traditional concepts.

They have accepted some new ideas, and have broken through their conventional concept of farming and weaving. As a result, they have blazed a new trail in building a well-to-do village by carrying their ancient civilization forward by developing exciting cultural products.

(China Daily April 14, 2009)