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Hualian Festival: A joyful blessing in black
Updated: Aug 8, 2025
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The Hualian Festival is a traditional celebration of the Yi ethnic group in Qiubei county, Yunnan province. Its name comes from an ancient legend in which ancestors smeared their faces with soot from cooking pots to ward off evil spirits. Today, people use black pigment made from glutinous rice straw ash to smear each other during the festival, expressing the heartfelt blessing: “A blackened body brings lifelong good fortune.”
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