The beating of drums and gongs resonate in the sky; horses with riders gallop single file along a narrow and stone-paved street, stirring up clouds of dust; people flanked on both sides of the street and on the roofs hold their breaths as the high-spirited riders howl along with their horses in a stunt-like manner.

It’s neither a battlefield, nor a circus show. It’s horse-riding performance, the climax of the Lantern Festival celebrations at Xiadongzhai, an age-old mountainous village in Niangziguan Town, Yangquan City, Shanxi Province.

Nestled in the mountains of Taihang, the village, with a population of around 1,000, has for hundreds of years developed the Lantern Festival which falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month. The festivities include “selecting two ‘Lantern Officials'”，“enjoying lanterns”, horse riding, Shehuo show (kind of martial arts performance with characters and plots rooted in Chinese classic military novels), fireworks, local opera shows, and performance of Bayin ensemble (an amateur orchestra made up of local senior farmer musicians).

Most of these celebrations are held along a less-than-3-meter-wide and 450-meter-long stone-paved street, which is the business and culture center of the village. From newborns to graybeards, almost everyone in the village is passionate about the annual Lantern Festival carnival, in the hopes of driving away evil spirits and bringing good luck. “All-inclusive and all-participating” are, without exaggeration, the right words to describe the village’s biggest annual gala.