Laba rice porridge

[Photo from zjol.com]

The people of Hangzhou have a custom: if you drink a bowl of rice porridge on the day of the Laba Rice Porridge Festival at Lingyin Temple, you'll have a year full of prosperity. Handing out the porridge at the temple is a tradition with more than a millennium of history in the city. The temple doesn't give out porridge onsite anymore, but instead sends porridge to charitable venues and old peoples' homes. On the day of the festival this year, the custom was included on the list of intangible cultural heritages of Hangzhou.