Chengdu Wenshu Monastery holds Laba Festival Temple Fair

The Laba Festival Temple Fair at the Wenshu Monastery in Chengdu, Sichuan province officially kicked off on Jan 4, offering a series of traditional folk experiences.
Laba Festival, a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated on the eighth day of the 12th month of the Chinese calendar, falls on Jan 7 this year.
The annual temple fair, one of the most influential Laba Festival folk activities in Southwest China, has been passed down for over 300 years and was included in Chengdu's intangible cultural heritage list in 2020.

This year’s event, which will run through Jan 7, includes a garden party, an online application for Laba porridge ingredient packs, and an in-person porridge serving.
The garden party, held on Jan 4, featured 10 interactive folk cultural activities such as pitch-pot, flower arrangement, and guessing lantern riddles.

Giving out free Laba porridge is the most important and distinctive folk activity during the event. The Wenshu Monastery’s Laba porridge is made from 14 ingredients, including dried tangerine peel, red dates, coix seed, goji berries, and black rice.
The online application for Laba porridge ingredient packs, which ran from Dec 31, 2024 to Jan 2, gave out a total of 100,000 packs. While the in-person porridge serving will start on Jan 5 and run through Jan 7.

The Wenshu Monastery will serve a total of 100,000 cups of freshly cooked Laba porridge to visitors. It has also set up 324 porridge distribution points across Chengdu through collaboration with local malls and communities, to distribute a total of 250,000 cups of pre-made Laba porridge in three days.
Additionally, the Wenshu Monastery will provide large Laba porridge packs that are enough for a total of 20,000 people to nursing homes, designated schools, and communities. During the Laba Festival, it will also visit and offer Laba porridge to disadvantaged residents in nearby communities.
Thanks to the efforts of the Wenshu Monastery, it has become a tradition for Chengdu residents to eat free Laba porridge at the Wenshu Monastery and get free pre-made Laba porridge at malls and communities to celebrate the Laba Festival.

The organizers said that by holding the temple fair, they hope to integrate the traditional festival into people's daily lives, bringing warmth and blessings amid daily hustle.
Jia Libin, director of Chengdu’s intangible cultural heritage protection center, highlighted the Wenshu Monastery’s vital role in preserving and promoting the temple fair, as well as in facilitating the creative transformation and innovative development of traditional culture.
The sweet flavor of Laba porridge and the festival celebrations bring together hundreds of thousands of residents and tourists, fostering gratitude, benevolence and family harmony and shaping a collective memory and cultural identity for the people of Chengdu, he said.