Stage shot of the Jin opera "Yangge" in Pingyao county, part of the 2015 Spring Festival event. [Photo/pingyao.gov.cn]

Another stage of the opera [Photo/pingyao.gov.cn]

There was a performance of some traditional Jin Opera that brought a lot of joy to tourists and locals alike, on Yingxunmen Square, in Pingyao county, Shanxi province the ninth day of the lunar New Year, Feb 27, with a number of operas and folk dances.

The county says that it held the event during the Spring Festival because it wants to develop this traditional form of opera and related culture, and there would be larger crowds of tourists at that time. And certainly the square was full of people, mostly elderly, but if you looked hard you could spot younger people and kids here and there enjoying the shows, which garnered a lot of applause. The county says it hopes it could get more teenagers interested in the traditional operatic arts.

Some tourists said that they hadn't expected to shows like this during their Pingyao visit, since they are quite rare nowadays, but they evoke memories of childhood and made this more like a real Spring Festival celebration.