On Sunday, people of the Hani ethnic group in southwest China's Yunnan Province held the first of what will be an annual carnival to celebrate a traditional sun festival with singing and dancing performances.

The carnival will last for three days in Mojiang Hani Autonomous County, known as "City of the Sun" because the Tropic of Cancer runs through it.

As part of the ongoing Kunming International Tourism Festival, the carnival featured fashion shows of traditional Hani style costumes, a seminar on Hani culture and games such as tug of war, cockfights, spinning tops and seesaws.

A 20-year-old Hani woman sang Twelve Beams of Sunshine, providing an explanation of the festival and the Hani people's worship of the sun.

"In the fresh morning air, the Hani embrace a new day; everything in the village is full of vitality; God has endowed us Hani with sunshine, all twelve beams of sunshine," she sang as everyone else joined in.

Mojiang, 270 kilometers from the provincial capital Kunming, is home to 210,000 Hani people, 15 percent of China's total Hani population.

Each year on the summer solstice, around June 21, when the sun is in its zenith over the Tropic of Cancer, many people travel to Mojiang hoping to "bid farewell" to their shadows for a brief moment.

(Xinhua News Agency April 11, 2005)