On the night of August 18, a hundred young people in Hanfu walked from the Great East Gate of Xindeng Ancient Town (新登) to the Lisui Gate (利遂门) at its west end, their sleeves catching the light of the old city walls. When the parade ended at 6:30 p.m., the group carried lotus lanterns down to the riverbank by the west gate and set them afloat. The scene was the second night of a three-day celebration marking 1,800 years since Xindeng, in Hangzhou’s Fuyang District (富阳), was established as a county seat.
The series, titled “High-Quality Coordinated Development of the Gexi River Basin (葛溪) and the 1,800th Anniversary of Xindeng,” runs from August 17 to 19. It is organized by the Fuyang district culture, radio, tourism, and sports bureau together with the six towns along the Gexi River — Xindeng, Luzhu (渌渚), Xukou (胥口), Yongchang (永昌), Wanshi (万市), and Dongqiao (洞桥) — with the district’s converged media center and the Hangzhou Fuyang Culture Media Group handling production.
Night one, “Folk Customs of the Gexi Source,” opened the program with a stage of local acts: She ethnic group (畲族) song and dance from Xindeng, lion dancing from Luzhu, the Yongchang green dragon, Wanshi’s big drums, and a dance called “The Happy Life of Ordinary People” by the “Mountain Flower Sisters” of Dongqiao. Night two handed the Dong’an Stage (东安大舞台) to the young, with street dance, Latin, recitation, drums, sketches, and chorus performed beneath the thousand-year-old walls, before the Hanfu parade and lantern release took over.
Opera owns the final night. Performers from the Fuyang Yueju (越剧) Art Heritage Institute will present classic excerpts and modern Yueju songs on August 19, with an open session inviting the audience to try a few lines themselves. The town promotes itself as a “hometown of opera” in Zhejiang Province, and the evening is meant as a full night of that identity.
Each night from 6 to 9 p.m., the “Gexi Summer Fireworks Night Market” runs beside the Lisui Gate, selling oil-fried steamed buns, stinky tofu, black rice, rice wine, and rice cakes alongside seasonal fruit from the six towns — watermelon, peaches, and blueberries. The district catering association has organized a “Big Chefs Hit the Streets, a Gexi Invitation” program in which head cooks from local restaurants such as Yuanji Farmhouse Kitchen (袁记土菜馆), Xin Shanwaishan Dafuhao, Woxin Restaurant (沃鑫酒家), Hongqi Mountain Lodge (洪琪山居), Shuihai Restaurant (水海饭店), Yuhanxian Farm Restaurant, and Dajiayuan Farmhouse Kitchen set up stalls, joined by Si Xiaofu (斯晓夫), a national top-grade chef.
Xindeng’s city walls are among the best-preserved historic landmarks in Fuyang, and the 1,800th anniversary is the hook for a broader summer push. The event borrows its theme, “Searching for Him in the Crowd, Come to Gexi,” from a Song-dynasty verse, and organizers framed the three nights as an attempt to let history and youth share the same stage. By the time the last lanterns drifted down the Gexi on August 19, the anniversary had given the old town its busiest summer nights in years.