Xishuangbanna Festivals and Events

Guanmen Festival is one of the important festivals in Dai people. It's often celebrated in the middle of July. At that day, all the old and young must go to some temples to pray. In three months, all the youth can fall in love with each other, but they can’t marry or be out.

Kaimen Festival is celebrated in the middle of October. This festival symbolizes the end of rainy season. From then on, the youth can begin to love freely or hold weddings. That day people will hold a grand banquet.

Dai Water-splashing Festival is the most important festival in one year, which begins from 13th to 15th in April lasting three days. In order to celebrating the festival, people usually use their fingers to dip a little water to shed on the Buddha. And then they splash water to others to express their blessings. It’s said that there’s a legacy about Water-splashing Festival. A long time ago, a terrible disaster destroyed the residence of Dai people. In order to help others, seven kind girls in village were determined to fight with the devil. They use the devil’s hair to cut his head. However, the devil’s head was burning when it fell, and the seven girls had to carry the head by turns until it rotted. At last, seven brave girls died. In honor of them, people regarded the day as Water-splashing Festival.

The annual Water-Splashing Festival is most important holiday of the Dai people. Held during the sixth month of the Dai calendar, usually falling in the middle of April, it is also known as the Festival for Bathing the Buddha.

Although there are numerous legends about the origin of the festival, one of the best known tells of the long-ago days when there was a devil in the village where the Dai people lived, doing all manner of evil. All the people hated him but his magic was too powerful for them to overcome.
 
One day in the sixth month, his seventh wife, who had been kidnapped from the village, tricked him into revealing his weaknesses. As he slept, his wives used his hair to cut off his head. But the head began to burn when it touched the ground, and the fire would die only if one of the women held the head tightly in her arms.

So the seven wives took turns holding the head, each for a period of one year. Every year when they changed, people would splash water on the woman who had been holding the head for the past year to wash away the blood and a year of fatigue.As time went by, the ritual became a happy -- even raucous -- way to send off the old year and greet the new.

The days of the Water-Splashing Festival are filled with various activities:

1th day : song and dance, dragon-boat races, the launching of rockets and the flying of Kongming lanterns
2th day : parades and fairs. Some ethnic people from different ethnic group will put on their truditional clothing. Many people offer their home-made Dai food on the fairs freely.
3th day : craze water splashing in Jinghong city.

But water splashing is central to all because water is the symbol of holiness, goodness and purity. People gather along the roadsides and in public parks and squares armed with buckets and basins of water or carrying squirt guns to drench each other in wishes for good luck and a happy new year.The Dai people account for 34 percent of the population of Xishuangbanna and form the biggest ethnic group in Yunnan Province, home to 25 of China‘s ethnic minorities.