Expats taste festive life in Sichuan

Amy Crozier, a nine-year-old New Zealander, holds a sugar creation in the shape of a dragon in one hand while her father Alistair Crozier, behind her, consul general of the New Zealand Consulate General in Chengdu, admires paper windmills made by a local artisan in Daying county, Sichuan. [Photo by Huang Zhiling/chinadaily.com.cn]

Matt Vegh looked on attentively as two workers pedaled to operate a bamboo ring to extract brine for making salt.

"It's fantastic. I have never seen this way of manufacturing salt," said the middle-aged Canadian who runs a film and TV production firm in Chengdu, Sichuan.

The scenario occurred in Zhuotongjing town in Daying county when some 100 overseas diplomats, representatives of foreign firms, visiting teachers and expatriates working in Sichuan and family members took part in a so-called Friendly Spring activity sponsored by the Sichuan Provincial Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.

"Each year, the association sponsors a trip named Friendly Spring to a place in Sichuan so that foreign friends in the province can experience local lifestyles. The Friendly Spring usually takes place one day before the Lantern Festival," said Li Zude, an association information officer.

During the Friendly Spring on Sunday, foreign friends saw how workers pedaled to extract brine and local artisans knitted bamboo products, made colorful clay figures, paper windmills, paper-cutting, cooked meat dumplings and pancakes and used melting sugar to do paintings of dragons and chickens which they could eat. Some of them also floated in the Dead Sea of China.

Located in the hinterland of Sichuan, Daying has a history of more than 2,000 years. Locals have used a bamboo ring to extract brine for making salt for more than 1,000 years. The technique has been included in China's first list of intangible cultural heritage.

Thanks to rich salt resources, the county has built the Dead Sea of China where visitors can swim and float as if they were in the Dead Sea in Israel.

Speaking on behalf of all the foreign friends participating in the Friendly Spring, Nancy Gordon, consul general of the Australian Consulate General in Chengdu, said she and her family felt the happiness and peace of the traditional festival and it was her belief the exchanges between Sichuan and the rest of the world would be deepened thanks to the efforts of the association and all the foreign friends.

Mikee Sokolov, an 11-year-old Ukrainian student in the Guangya School in Dujiangyan, Sichuan, has taken part in the Friendly Spring five times since he came to Sichuan with his teacher parents six years ago.

"I have been to many parts of Sichuan and learned many things which I would otherwise never experience such as making a lantern with my own hands," he said.