Every year on the seventh day of the seventh month is the Hainan Baoting Hippie Festival, Hippie Festival is the Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County, Hainan Province, Li and Miao compatriots once a year a grand traditional folk festival, is by the Li and Miao folk water festival custom development of the festivities.
"Water Festival" originated from the beautiful legend of Baoting Qixianling area.
Baoting Seven Immortals Ridge consists of seven steep peaks, which is the place where the seven fairies descended to the earth in the legend. After the seven fairies descended to Baoting, they formed a deep friendship with the Li and Miao people here, and taught the Li people various ways of production and life. In order to repay the Seven Immortals, every year on the eve of the seventh day of the seventh month, the Li and Miao people hold a large-scale splash carnival in the hot springs where the Seven Immortals bathed. At that time, no matter men and women, young and old, no matter whether they know each other or not, they all pick up all kinds of water basins or all kinds of water guns, and splash each other happily to pass the blessing. Young girls and boys even played a fierce "water war", soaked to the skin, enjoying themselves.
In the past, the Tanabata Splash Festival was centered on villages and towns to hold activities from 2000, Baoting County will be centralized to the county town, together with a more lively festival, Tanabata will also be held on the day of the grand opening ceremony of the festival. In addition to still retaining the traditional Li splashing session, other folk activities such as climbing pole to get treasure, crossing the pontoon bridge, crossing the log bridge, etc. have been changed to ethnic sports and athletic events, as well as to welcome the holy water, large-scale cultural performances, ethnic parade, ethnic stunts, the seven fairies selection contest, ethnic culture competition, brocade weaving contest, folk song contest and ethnic food contest and other various activities.
The festival has been successfully held for 15 times since 2000. From about 2,000 participants in the first edition of the event to tens of thousands later on, the popular participation has been increasing. In addition to the local people, it also attracts a large number of foreign guests. Hippodrome Festival has become a carnival, become more and more big folk festival activities, with the Hippodrome Festival more and more popularity, brand influence gradually strengthened, the scale of a session than a large, Hippodrome Festival form by the simple cultural and artistic performances have become more diversified, the time by the original one day to expand into the seven days, the content is also more and more towards the people, by the people generally welcome, realized from the folk to the country, from the country to the national The internationalization of the leap from the folk to the nation, from the nation to the internationalization of the leap.
In 2010, Baoting Hippodrome Festival was awarded the title of "2010 China's Top Ten Famous Festival Brands", and in 2011, it was named "China's Most Popular Folk Festival" by the UNESCO Folk Art Organization.
Today, Hippie Festival has become one of the brightest business cards of Baoting, which is an important stage for excavating and promoting the culture of Li and Miao; it is a carrier for marketing and promoting Baoting's tourism resources and Li and Miao culture. Baoting with the Splash Festival platform, fully demonstrated Baoting unique rainforest hot springs, folk traditions, ethnic customs and other green tourism resources, to create a unique Li Miao ethnic characteristics of the national culture brand, show Baoting unique ethnic and regional characteristics of the cultural charm.