The Ditan Temple Culture Fair, a Beijing-themed cultural event, will return to Taipei during the Chinese Spring Festival in early 2017. This will be the fourth year the event has taken place. 

As one of Beijing’s long-standing temple fairs, it has become a famous cultural event in China and abroad with its authentic Beijing cultural elements and traditional folk customs. It has also grown into the most popular one in Beijing with more than 30 years of development.

The last fair was held at the Taipei Expo Park from Feb 20 to 29, 2016, and received more than 300,000 visits during the ten-day event, which offered a range of intangible cultural heritage elements such as silk figurines, paper-cutting,  cloisonne work or Jingtailan, dough figurines, and painted snuff bottles.

A group of time-honored brands, craftsmen, and successors of intangible cultural heritage gathered at the event. More than 20 traditional programs were brought to the local people, who also got a chance to experience Beijing-style folk products such as Ocarina and sugar sculpture blowing, and tried all kinds of traditional Beijing snacks like fried cakes and tanghulu (sugarcoated haws on a stick).

There were also folk performances, including Jingyun Dagu, a ballad-singing drumbeat performance; crosstalk and kuaiban, a rhythmic comic talk to the accompaniment of bamboo clappers. Mainland arobats surprised visitors with their breathtaking diabolo, jujitsu, and trident juggling performances.

What will be shown during next year’s Ditan Culture Temple Fair? Let’s take a peek at previous fairs.

The opening ceremony of last year’s Beijing Ditan Temple Fair in Taipei. [Photo/bjwzb.gov.cn]

Zhou Maofei, executive director general of SOCASAO, learns about the sale of Dongcheng district’s cultural products in oversea markets at an exhibition. [Photo/bjdch.gov.cn]

A girl tries to blow a sugar sculpture. [Photo/bjdch.gov.cn]