When the 20th Mojiang international twins festival lit up its countywide lively holiday aura recently, the Hani ethnic group-inhabited small county in southwest China impressed tourists from near and far with a unique twins culture.
Photo provided by Mojiang County Integrated Media Center shows a scene of the world twins friendship activity of the 20th Mojiang international twins festival on May 1, 2026.
With the Tropic of Cancer traversing the locality, Mojiang Hani Autonomous County of Pu'er City in Yunnan Province boasts a natural twins birth rate higher than the world average and 1,200 pairs of twins among its 270,000 population.
Since its first celebration in 2005, the Mojiang Tropic of Cancer international twins festival has drawn over 19,000 pairs of twins and 4.7 million travelers from home and abroad to tour the ethnic culture-rich county.
Setting county-, town- and village-level sites for the celebrations, this year's Mojiang international twins festival contained 20-plus core activities and 40-plus folk customs experiencing programs.
Among them, traditional activities such as the Mojiang twins tour, "face blackening" blessing of Hani ethnic group and the long street banquets were innovated via blending with modern lifestyle.
For instance, the coffee-flavored "face blackening" blessing powder rolled out since 2025 went viral on short video platforms in China.
Apart from this, other twins culture and local ethnic culture-themed regular activities such as the Yunnan Twins Show, Yunnan Village Barbecues on every Wednesday and Saturday and local intangible cultural heritage (ICH) study tours added more fun to the festive spree.
During this May Day holiday (May 1-5), the festival, one of the most influential ethnic activities in Yunnan, welcomed 1,283 pairs of twins including those from 20 countries and regions to bask in the diverse folk traditions there.
For a pair of twins from Iran who came to Mojiang for the first time, they were fascinated by the hospitality of local people and loved the county as it is a place that can bring happiness and joys to them.
By developing creative twin cultural products and other surrounding products for the festival, sales of the county's green farm produce such as black rice, tea and coffee beans and related industries were also greatly shored up.
Via holding the international twins festival, Mojiang Hani Autonomous County is now transforming the local twins and ethnic cultural IPs into tangible economic gains, serving as a replicable model for cultural tourism integration and differentiated county economy development.
(Edited by Duan Jing with Xinhua Silk Road, duanjing@xinhua.org)
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