Silkworm Flower Festival Blooms in Shanlian, Huzhou, Celebrating Tradition and Youth Co-Creation

Drums rolled, cymbals clanged, silk flowers fluttered and crowds thronged. At the foot of Hanshan Mountain in Shanlian Town, Nanxun District, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province, the 28th Hanshan "Zha Can Hua" (Silkworm Flower Pinching) Folk Culture Festival reached its climax on April 5. With the theme of "Silkworm Flowers Blossom in Spring · Blessings Arise from Hanshan" and highlighting the feature of "youth co-creation", the event attracted tens of thousands of tourists to gather and attend this spring folk date.

The silkworm flower parade set off from the southern foot of Hanshan Mountain. Twelve silkworm flower maidens, holding flower baskets and sitting on floats, led the way, scattering silkworm flowers along the route. Wherever they went, crowds gathered, and tourists stretched out their hands to catch the blessings full of spring. Many tourists joined the parade and climbed the thousand-year-old ancient road to pray in the mountains.

Among the crowd, Xu Han, a post-2000 tourist from Shenzhen University, stood out as she walked with the phalanx, dressed in a silkworm flower maiden costume and wearing silk silkworm flowers on her head. "Every step of the silkworm flower makeup is full of craftsmanship, and the experience is excellent," said Jiang Nan, her companion, excitedly. She added that she had only seen silkworm flower maidens in documentaries before, and felt quite novelty to participate in the event in person. On that day, there were quite a few young tourists like them who made a special trip to attend, experience the makeup and join the parade, and the reservation quota for silkworm flower makeup had been sold out half a month earlier.

Looking far from the height, long queues formed at five "Customs Clearance for Blessings" interactive points of Hanshan Pagoda. Tourists held "Silkworm Flower Blessing" clearance documents, participated in traditional Chinese-style games such as cocoon throwing for good luck and fortune turning, and collected stamps to exchange for souvenirs. On the stage of South District Zen Courtyard, the folk performance "Praising Silkworm Flowers" featured graceful water sleeves and melodious folk music; on the square, inheritors taught hands-on in the "Zha Can Hua" intangible cultural heritage (ICH) classroom, where more than 100 tourists made silkworm flower cultural and creative works, allowing the ancient craft to be reborn in a style that conforms to modern aesthetics. From morning till night, the ICH silkworm flower market, 260 common prosperity stalls and popular science dramas appeared in turn, making tourists linger and forget to return.

Notably, a fish lantern team further ignited the event's popularity through a night parade, with hundreds of bright ICH fish lanterns wandering like a galaxy at the foot of Hanshan Mountain. People prayed for "abundant harvests year after year" for the water town's fishing fires and "excellent silkworm harvests" for the silkworm town's customs, jointly praying for good weather and a bumper harvest year after year. On that night, the newly dressed silkworm flower maidens specially went to Nanxun Dingjiaqiao Night Market, spreading silkworm flowers, distributing consumption coupons to tourists and extending a warm invitation in the form of "ICH folk customs entering the ancient town".

In recent years, Shanlian Town has built a "youth co-creation +" model, attracting more than 1,000 agricultural makers to settle in Shanlian, launching 56 various youth innovation projects and gathering a youth innovation team of more than 1,000 people. The formats led by young people have contributed 85% of the town's cultural and tourism consumption growth. The thousand-year-old sericulture has been reborn because of youth; the century-old grand event has thrived because of co-creation. This spring folk feast has not only brought out the vivid vitality of ICH, but also forged a new "silk road" for the two-way interaction between youth and the countryside and cultural common prosperity.