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Every year, since 1991, Baoding City
has been holding a festival for the Aged. It falls on Oct,9-10,
matching the Chinese Chongyang Festival, a festival specially for
the olds. This year, it is the 10th session.
Baoding
people, as the people of whole China, has a tradition of
respecting the aged and caring the young. People in Baoding have
their special way of keeping fit. The average life-span in Baoding
is 6.7 years longer than that of the country. So the name of this
festival in Chinese is also called "the Festival of
Respecting the Aged and Keeping Fit".
Every year,
many domestic visitor as well as visitor from foreign countries
came to attend this festival, and they were warmly welcome by the
people of Baoding.
One group
needs special mentioning. In Quebec, Canada, there is a very
similar festival called "Senior's Fair ", People from
Canada came to attend Baoding's festival every year, for the last
7 years, and the people from Baoding went to Canada to attend the
Canadian's festival every year. The two cities' governments have established
a sisterhood relationship between these two festivals. It is
believed that the Canadians are sending a large visiting group for
this year's festival.
This year's
festival, as the spokesman says, is going to be held in Anguo, a
city famous for Chinese Herbs, and Baoding City. Apart from the
performance, the dancing and songs, visitors will be asked to
visit the magic Chinese Traditional Herb Medicine, herb plantation
farm, herb markets, and would be invite to dine the famous Chinese
herbal food, a combination of dishes cooked with herbs. The herbal
food is believed to be one of the reasons of long life in this
area. Visitors are to be invited to visit the local family, a program
that is widely welcome by the foreign visitors. It is said
that a banquet is going to be held by the Mayor of Baoding for the
visitors.
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