SEVERAL hundred thousand Foshan residents joined a carnival parade of eight floats and about 2,000 performers as it made its way through the city's streets Friday morning.

The two-hour parade, which started at the central plaza in Chancheng District at 10 a.m., marked the opening of the weeklong 7th Asia Art Festival. The parade featured traditional Chinese lion dances, martial arts, and stilt walking as well as music and dance from other Asian nations.

An 88-year-old woman surnamed Ou said she had waited on the parade's route two hours before it arrived, as latecomers had to climb onto roadside buildings to get a good view.

The spectators were amused when eight Shenzhen performers, dressed as roosters, mimicked a cockfight and shook "claws" with them.

A attractive female "matchmaker" on stilts won cheers all along the route, before people discovered that the performer was actually a 56-year-old man from Northeast China dressed in costume. "It's 40 years I've acted as a 'matchmaking lady,'" Jiang Zaichun told people in a laugh.

On Friday evening, 21 art troupes from around Asia performed at the official opening ceremony of the art festival. The gala show included Chinese acrobatics, Bangladeshi folk dance, Myanmar's drum dance, Vietnamese music, and modern Singaporean dance.

During the seven-day festival, with the theme of "culture as the core, glory for all," Foshan will offer nine outdoor performances as well as a ceramics art show, a Foshan paper cuts show, a lamp exhibition and an exhibition of Chinese New Year paintings.
Foshan is where Chinese martial arts originated in the 19th century. The city is also the hometown of legendary kungfu master Wong Feihung and the lion dance.

Editor: Yan
Li Dan