If you are in Xingtai this month and want a Qixi plan that does not involve a restaurant reservation, walk into the Jialeyuan Life Plaza (家乐园生活广场) market on Shengshi Road any day until August 30. The Guofeng street zone runs four sections, heritage crafts, specialty food, Qixi merchandise and local tourism displays, and the whole block keeps its Hanfu dressing corner, poetry-and-pitch-pot games and period-costume processions running all day. Nightly stage shows cycle through singers, rock bands and folk troupes, with the nationally graded performer Wang Baode (王宝德) holding court for meet-and-greets. Couples in rented robes, braids and borrowed fans have made the market the city’s most-photographed backdrop of the season.
The Festival Behind the Market
The market anchors the national “Our Festival: Qixi” cultural event, which runs in Xingtai from August 15 to 20, the third to eighth days of the seventh lunar month. Six central agencies, including the civilization offices of the central publicity department, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the culture and tourism ministry’s heritage division, and the All-China Women’s Federation, co-sponsor the program, with Hebei province and Xingtai hosting. This is the second year in a row the event has landed in the city, which styles itself “the hometown of Chinese Qixi culture.” The theme, “Quan Xin Quan Yi, Love in Xingtai,” organizes 18 events around the city’s springs and canals, built on a one-main-venue-plus-satellites model with the main stage on the island at Baiquan Yuanshui (百泉鸳水) Park. The opening ceremony runs August 18 at 7:30 p.m. with an immersive lakeside performance.
The Big Night: 18,000 Seats
August 20 brings the week’s loudest event: a concert at the Lanchi Logistics Park that seats nearly 18,000 people. Six acts, Zhang Shaohan (张韶涵), Li Yugang (李玉刚), Zhao Zhao, Hou Xuan, Liu Keyi and A Youyou, split the night into two movements, “Spring Rhythm” and “Love Notes,” covering Guofeng ballads, pop and folk, with a lucky draw at the interval. If crowds are not your speed, the quieter options are plentiful: Tianhe Mountain, marketed as “China’s Mountain of Love,” holds its “Find Today’s Weaving Maid” awards; Neiqiu county’s Ox King Temple runs a Qixi folk season of worship, bridal ball tossing, river lanterns and needle-threading contests; the Haonanguan historic district stages the “Cowherd and Weaving Maid, Lingjing Romance” interactive show with bridal costume processions spanning several dynasties; and Dongyouliu wharf lights up its waterfront for night rides, stamp-collecting cycling and live music.
The Sweet Economy Adds Up
The festival also comes with a spreadsheet. Song Yun, deputy director of the Xingtai municipal party committee’s publicity department, describes a “sweet economy” chain built around dating, shopping, film, dining, lodging, travel and entertainment. The city’s Sweet Economy Federation counts 71 member companies, whose average revenue has grown 28 percent. Xingtai’s culture and tourism bureau has spent the year building the Baiquan Yuanshui provincial resort area, adding via ferrata climbing and an underwater marriage proposal experience, and promoting the micro-variety show “Twelve Sweet Hours” and the short drama “Spring City Romance.” The commerce bureau has lined up more than 80 promotional events across autos, home appliances, digital goods, bicycles, retail and e-commerce, and issued 50,000 extra appliance and digital coupons on August 7 alone, expected to drive more than 100 million yuan in consumption.
District-level additions round out the program: Xindu district ties its Tianhe Mountain resort to a sweet culture market, a “mountain town, sweet ride” cycling event and the Yanjing Beer Festival running through August 16, while Xiangdu district turns Jingnan Houhai into a “Qixi confession destination” and stages the live historical drama “Chai Wang Dao” (柴王道) and cross-dynasty bridal costume parades in the old city. Twenty couples will hold a collective wedding at Baiquan Yuanshui Park during the week. Between the market stalls, the concert and the lakeside vows, the city has given itself two weeks of reasons to slow down, dress up and take a photo or two.