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Summary The annual Firecracker and Dragon Festival kicked off in Binyang County of southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on February 13. The festival is a combination of cultures of the Han and Zhuang people.
During this festival, people march on the street and dance with colorful dragons. The festival was inscribed into the National List of Non-Material Cultural Heritage in 2008.The highlight of this festival is to blast the dragons and set them on fire. About 110 dragons have been prepared for this festival and 10 best ones will be burned in the new development zone in the eastern part of Binyang county. People choose this area because they hope it can have a good start in development in the New Year. Then the dragon dance will tour every corner of this county to send greetings to the people.People in Binyang hold the grand dragon dance festival on the eleventh day of the first month of every lunar New Year. While the dragon dance is going on, firecrackers would be set off to add to the joyous atmosphere. This custom has a tradition of over 1000 years in Binyang.Local people believe that if two lovers can cross over a dancing dragon hand in hand, it indicates that they will get married soon; if they can get hold of the pearl from the mouth of the dragon, it means that they will expect whatever they want and if they can blast the dragon head, luck would accompany them all year round.
