From July 24 to 26, 2026, the “Water Rhyme Jiangsu: Enjoy ICH at Your Doorstep” Xuzhou edition — the Wuyun Hanfeng (武韵汉风) Traditional Martial Arts Conference — was held at the Jinlong Lake Performance Plaza in Xuzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone. Organized by the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism and executed by the Xuzhou Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism and the Xuzhou ETDZ Administrative Committee, the three-day immersive gathering assembled heritage treasures from all 13 cities of Jiangsu Province. The event combined martial arts demonstrations, a Hanfu lakeside parade, an market, and Su-League soccer viewing into a multi-format summer cultural festival.
The event opened on the evening of July 24 with a cultural troupe variety show featuring song, dance, and children’s performances. July 25 was the peak day: a street martial arts flash mob in the morning with Tai Chi fans and Bagua boxing parades across the plaza; a lakeside Hanfu parade at noon featuring a grand Hanfu procession, martial arts teams, and folk performance troupes moving along the Jinlong Lake waterfront, drawing more than 3,000 local residents to interact and take photos. In the late afternoon, the main event — the Wuyun Hanfeng Traditional Martial Arts Conference — officially launched, with martial arts teams from Nanjing (Jinling Gan Fengchi martial arts), Suzhou (Jiangnan boat boxing), Changzhou (Shi family Bagua boxing), Zhenjiang (Sun-style Tai Chi), and Xuzhou (Peixian martial arts) taking turns on stage before a packed audience.
During the event, the Jinlong Lake area simultaneously hosted the “Come to Xuzhou, Taste the Summer” (来徐州 品一夏) 2026 Xuzhou Summer Tourism Consumption Promotional Series, offering customized on-site plans built around six “food moments,” five culinary itineraries, and eight themed activities. Xuzhou also released more than 130 summer activities and 32 public-benefit deals, distributed 4.3 million yuan (CNY) in consumption subsidies across multiple platforms, and launched dedicated food-tourism bus routes to activate the summer market. The national ICH “Xuzhou Summer Goat-Eating Custom” (徐州伏羊食俗) and the Pengzu Goat Festival (彭祖伏羊节) appeared simultaneously, with the Xuzhou Culinary Association announcing Goat Festival-specific public-benefit policies that linked goat soup, local barbecue, and the ICH event.
Across the three days, the ICH market remained open continuously, assembling 70 signature ICH projects from across Jiangsu Province, organized into five zones: martial arts performances, craft interaction, ICH wellness, creative products, and food tasting. Exhibits included Yixing purple-sand pottery (宜兴紫砂), Nanjing antique-style ivory carving (南京仿古牙雕), Suzhou Song brocade, and Xuzhou Han embroidery (徐州汉绣) — representing all 13 municipalities. Among the food offerings, Feng County’s hand-turned flatbread (反手烧饼) and pan-fried stuffed buns (煎包) became the market’s runaway hits, with long queues forming throughout. The ICH wellness zone, incorporating martial arts health culture, offered experiences such as Xuzhou Sheng’s wooden-handle fire-needle technique (盛氏木柄火针技艺), Su-style massage therapy (苏氏推拿), and Huai’an Ji-style beeswax hot compress (嵇式蜂蜡热敷), all attracting long lines. The event also included a “Six Hours in the ETDZ: Exploring ICH” cultural tour, with experts and journalists visiting the Pantao Mountain Scenic Area (蟠桃山景区), Qian Gu Yuan (千菇园), and Zhengbeng Farm (正本农场) to survey ICH-related agricultural and cultural tourism resources. A Su-League second-screen viewing zone was set up at the music plaza, creating a novel “sports plus ICH” crossover scene.
The lakeside Hanfu parade, the most visually spectacular element of the Wuyun Hanfeng event, consisted of ten processional formations — Hanfu procession, martial arts teams, folk performance troupes — that moved slowly along the Jinlong Lake promenade. Interactive photo spots set up along the route drew continuous queues, and many local residents in traditional Hanfu spontaneously joined the procession, turning the lakeside trail into a flowing Han culture showcase. Summer breezes over Jinlong Lake, flowing robes against the water’s reflection — the ancient Han cultural lineage of the Liang-Han region came alive in the Pengcheng (彭城, a historical name for Xuzhou) summer night.
Beyond the single-event format, the Wuyun Hanfeng conference leveraged the development zone’s lakeside cultural tourism resources to bring ICH out of exhibition halls and into the city’s living texture. Organizers stated that Xuzhou will continue to build on the “Water Rhyme Jiangsu” provincial cultural brand, deepen the use of local resources in martial arts, goat-eating customs, and Han culture, and normalize “ICH at Your Doorstep” public-benefit events to promote the creative transformation and innovative development of traditional culture. The Jinlong Lake cultural programming now operates year-round: from spring whip-spinning-dragon sports events to summer Goat Festival food markets and Su-League viewing, from autumn wellness education to winter reading weeks — achieving a sustainably operated rhythm of seasons, months, and weeks.