Yvonne Harpell, a teacher with Shenzhen Nanshan Concord College of Sino-Canada, tries the lion dance yesterday.Sun Yuchen

Thousands of visitors thronged to celebrate the last day of the Spring Festival yesterday, the Lantern Festival, at a major theme park in Shenzhen.

The Splendid China China Folk Culture Villages in Nanshan District held a grand show for the festival, featuring exhibitions and performances of traditional Chinese music, opera, dance, art, medicine and crafts.

The opening performance of a lion dance, a festival tradition, won a lot of applause. The lion, made of quilted fabric and manipulated by two actors, jumped, leaped, squatted, ate and even napped on stilts.

Briton Jonathan Harris made sure he took plenty of photos of the dance. "This is the most professional lion dance I've ever watched during my three-year-long stay here. The performers made the lion look so much like a real one."

Guessing lantern riddles is regarded an indispensable part of the Lantern Festival and a riddle game has been a regular highlight of the park's festivities since 2005. Hundreds of people enjoyed the aesthetic pleasure given by the lanterns, but more importantly, they enjoyed the challenge of solving the riddles.

Those who successfully solved the riddles won gifts and water lanterns, and along the river flowing through the park, children floated their water lanterns and made New Year's wishes.

Besides the festival traditions, visitors were treated to a series of traditional Chinese art and skill demonstrations. Silhouette cutting master Liu Qipei made vivid silhouette cuttings for each visitor in under 10 seconds each. Dough figurine master Zhang Minzhong made dough figures in just minutes.

A young German couple, the Brookmanns, were fascinated by the performances and demonstrations. "This is the first time we have celebrated the Chinese Lantern Festival with Chinese people and everything is so interesting,"  Mrs. Brookmann said.

The traditional food for the Lantern Festival is yuanxiao, or tangyuan — small balls of glutinous rice flour with bean paste, dried fruit or sesame fillings. One reason people eat tangyuan is that it has a similar pronunciation to "tuanyuan,"  which means reunion.