STORY: S China's Jing ethnic group celebrates traditional Ha Festival
DATELINE: July 28, 2023
LENGTH: 00:01:26
LOCATION: DONGXING, China
CATEGORY: SOCIETY/CULTURE 
 
SHOTLIST:
1. various of celebrations
2. SOUNDBITE (Chinese): FAN GUOQING, Director of culture, sports and tourism bureau of Dongxing
 
STORYLINE:
 
The Jing people in Dongxing City of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region celebrated their traditional annual Ha Festival starting on Wednesday.
 
The Jing ethnic minority is the only maritime ethnic group in China. In their native language, "ha" means "singing."
 
The three-day festival is generally marked by rich rituals of worshiping the sea god and grand celebrations of singing and dancing.
 
The Ha Festival begins on the ninth day of the sixth month in the lunar calendar, and this year it falls on July 26.
 
The festival was listed as China's intangible cultural heritage in 2006 by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
 
SOUNDBITE (Chinese): FAN GUOQING, Director of culture, sports and tourism bureau of Dongxing
"The festival is an epitome of the traditional culture of Jing (ethnic group). It is not only the biggest festival of the community, but also a unique tourism specialty of our city.
We expected to leverage this year's Ha Festival to increase the brand awareness of our folk culture tourism and attract more visitors from across the country."
 
In the first half of this year, Dongxing experienced an explosive growth in the tourism sector, receiving 5.61 million tourists and raking in 5.66 billion yuan (about 791 million U.S. dollars) in revenue. 
 
Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Dongxing, China.
(XHTV)