Nansha Mazu Cultural Tourism Festival to kick off this Sunday

Mazu figure in stone [Photo/Xinhua]

The annual Guangzhou Nansha Mazu Cultural Tourism Festival will kick off this Sunday, April 16 at the Tianhou Palace in east Nansha District, Guangzhou. The festival will last for four days.

On April 16, the opening ceremony will stage the annual ritual of the festival, a large-scale dancing & singing performance named “Ode to Mazu”, presented by over 300 young performers in traditional fineries from Guangdong’s Chaoshan region. Members of Nansha Mazu Culture Association will put on a grand sacrificial ceremony to worship Mazu.

During the festival, there will be a culture exhibition, where you can enjoy Kylin dance, Mok Gar Kuen (one of the five major family styles of Southern Chinese martial arts), Gambiered Canton Gauze costume show, and so on. If you are one of the first 30 visitors entering the Palace each day during the festival, you will receive a share of blessed rice or Mazu noodle.

Since it is the 1057th anniversary of the birth of Mazu, the Tianhou Palace will be decorated with 1057 red lanterns along roads, inside venues, on trees and lamp poles. 10,057 strains of flowers will be laid out in the greenbelts, including red sage, golden shrimp plant, balsamine and frangipani.

Main Hall of Tianhou Palace [Photo/Xinhua]

The Mazu statue for the parade will be dressed with a set of brand new fancy garments, which contains nine pieces. All the embroideries on clothes are handmade and take more than one month to finish.

It is learned that inside the Palace, there is a little-known mysterious scenic spot waiting for the tourists to explore. The scenic spot is eight Chinese characters “天后圣景福地洞天” formed by about 10,000 golden-leaf trees. It is located behind the stone memorial archway along the central axis and can only be viewed from a great height. So if you go to Tianhou Palace, check out for this great view.

While you are at a great height in the Palace, don’t forget to take a look at the Bagua-shape mosaiculture which is also situated along the central axis. The mosaiculture is composed of flowers of two different colors. By the way, 1000 pink bauhinia trees are in full bloom too.

Mazu, also known by several other names and titles such as Tianhou (Queen of Heaven), is a Chinese sea goddess. Facing the Lingding Ocean,the mouth of the Pearl River, Nansha Tianhou Palace is a Mazu temple on the southeastern slope of the Dajiao Mountain in Guangzhou. The architecture combines both the style of the Forbidden City in Beijing and the sublimity of Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum in Nanjing. It is the largest palace compound its category in the world.

Nansha Tianhou Palace (南沙天后宫)

Admission: RMB 20 per ticket

Add.: No. 88 Tianhou Road, Nansha District, Guangzhou (广州市南沙区天后路88号)

How to get there: Take Guangzhou Metro Line Line 4, get off at Huangge Station (黄阁站), then transfer to Bus No. 3; or get off at Jiaomen Station (蕉门站), and transfer to Bus No. 4 or 5; or get off at Jinzhou Station (金洲站), and transfer to Bus No. 4, 5, 18, or 19.

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In Nansha District, there is more than Free Trade Zone. Apart from Tianhou Palace, other scenic spots include the beautiful Sunflower Garden with one million sunflower plants whose seeds are all imported (mainly from Japan), the entertaining Nansha Seaside Pool which is named as the first beach in Guangzhou, the amazing Fisherman’s Wharf that is one of the most important fishing ports in China, and the exuberant Nansha Wetland Park—the largest wetland park in Guangzhou as well as an important stop for migrant birds and a good place to feast your eyes on water lilies.