The Miao's most important celebration takes place after their autumn harvest. Men play lusheng while women dressed in gaily decorated costumes perform a special dance using stools as props. \n\nDuring New Year celebrations, lusheng music can be heard and the stool dance seen everywhere in Miao villages. In fact, at every get-together the Miao people dance. Elderly members of the minority may be too old to swirl around with stools, but they eagerly watch the fun from the sidelines. Smiling kids wearing New Year outfits excitedly sway to the beat.\n\nMiao people usually wear short skirts when they do the stool dance, and there is an interesting story about this tradition. It is said that one day 300 years ago, an old Miao woman was walking home in a long skirt that was stained with excrement. Dressed in the dirty skirt, she stepped up to analtartooffer a sacrifice to the deity. The deity was offended by her garment and punished her by killing her with a lightning bolt. To ensure the future of the clan, Miao people later decided that their women should wear short skirts instead of long ones.\n\nNote : The text above is an excerpt from the article provided by the China Culture (http://en.chinaculture.org/)

Show the excellence of Korean traditional culture to the world and promoting talchum to broader audience

Show the excellence of Korean traditional culture to the world and promoting talchum to broader audience

Andong plays host to the Mask Dance Festival which started out as a 2-day event back in 1997. Mask Dance Festival takes place in Andong, home of the UNESCO World Heritage designated Andong Hahoe Village. The festival includes various cultural performances including Korea's mask dance drama, an intangible cultural heritage, and mask dance performances from around the world. Today, it lasts 10 days and is packed with activities, shows, performances, festivities that take place all around the city. It’s one of the coolest and most traditional Korean cultural festivals in the country. The festival evolved from being mainly shamanists to an occasion where the common people could make fun of the people with a higher power, like monks, noblemen, and government officials. Although there are celebrations all around the city during this South Korean festival, most of the happenings are concentrated around the main site which is the Mask Dance Park.