Fish lantern teams put on fantastic performances at the Haixi Fish Lantern Cultural Festival in Haixi township, Qingtian county. [Photo/Tide News]

The first Haixi Fish Lantern Cultural Festival took place amid excitement in Haixi township, Qingtian county, Lishui, Zhejiang province on Feb 19.

Nine fish lantern teams showcased their vibrant performances, imitating carp swimming, leaping, and playing in the water. Accompanied by rhythmic drumbeats, the performers ran back and forth, waving fish lanterns from side to side, winning bursts of applause from the audience.

Zhu Dayan, a villager from Haixi, expressed her delight at the lively and grand event. Influenced by her father since childhood, she has an unusual love for the fish lantern performance, never missing a single show.

"It's not only our villagers at home who enjoy the fish lanterns. Many from Haixi have gone out and brought the joy of fish lanterns to other places like Yiwu (a city in Zhejiang province)," said Zhu Guangping, captain of a Haixi fish lantern team in Yiwu, who set up the team with a group of villagers in 2019.

The Qingtian fish lantern dance is one of the most representative traditional folk dances of fish lantern in Zhejiang and even the whole country. It was listed as a national intangible cultural heritage in 2008.

In recent years, the fish lantern dance has appeared in several domestic large-scale activities, including the Hangzhou Asian Games and Shanghai World Expo. Furthermore, it is also gradually "swimming" to foreign countries such as Spain and Italy, as Qingtian's people go out of China to live abroad.