What are the representative festivals of the Tibetan people?

The traditional Tibetan festival of Zhuanshanhui is also known as the Mufo Festival and the Mountain God Respecting Festival. Popular in Ganzi and Aba Tibetan areas. Every year on the 8th day of April in the lunar calendar, the birthday is bathed in Kowloon leaf water, so it is also called the Buddha Mu Festival. On this day every year, people from far and near in the Garze Tibetan area, dressed in national costumes, gather on Paoma Mountain and the Zheduo River. People first go to the temple to burn incense and pray and burn paper money. Then they go around the mountain to worship the gods and pray for their blessings. After walking around the mountain, we set up a tent for a picnic and performed Tibetan opera. They sang folk songs, danced Guozhuang dance and Xianzi dance, and the riders also participated in horse racing and archery competitions. During this period, people will also hold material exchange activities and other cultural and sports activities.

The Flower Picking Festival is a traditional Tibetan festival in Boyu, Nanping County. It is held every year on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month and lasts for two days. Legend has it that Boyu was a remote ravine a long time ago. People lived by gathering and hunting, and used leaves and animal skins to make clothes. One day, a girl named Lianzhi came from afar. She was beautiful, kind, and clever. She taught the local people to cultivate land, weave and sew clothes, and she also collected lilies to treat people's illnesses. One year on the fifth day of May, Lianzhi went up the mountain to pick flowers, but was blown off a cliff by a nickel wind and fell to her death. People were very sad, so they went to the mountains to pick flowers on this day to commemorate her. Over time, the Flower Picking Festival was formed.

New Year's Day in the Yellow Tibetan calendar is the most important festival for the Tibetan people. They dress in costumes to pay New Year greetings to each other and go to temples to pray for blessings. On the 15th day of the first lunar month, religious services are held in major temples, and at night, butter lamps are lit in every household. In temples such as Ta'er in Qinghai and the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, the butter flowers made by lamas from butter are brightly colored and exquisitely sculptured, and are famous far and wide. April 15th is said to be the day when Sakyamuni became a Buddha and Princess Wencheng arrived in Tibet. Religious activities are held in various places to commemorate this day. In July, when the grain harvest is in sight, farmers carry scriptures on their backs and go around the fields, called the Wangguo Festival, to wish for a prosperous harvest and a prosperous New Year.

Tibetans call the New Year "Losa". In ancient Tibetan calendar years, wheat ripening or wheat harvesting was the beginning of the year, which was in summer and autumn. According to records, before 100 BC, the Tibetan people had their own calendar, which calculated the day, month and year based on the waxing and waning of the moon. Hundreds of years later, the Bon believers (Tibetan primitive religion) were able to accurately calculate the return time of the winter solstice, and used it as the beginning of the year, forming festivals and various rituals. In the 7th century AD, two princesses, Wencheng and Jincheng of the Tang Dynasty, came to Tibet to get married and form an alliance, bringing with them the calendar from the mainland. Since then, the ancient Tibetan calendar was combined with the Han calendar and the Indian calendar. By the Yuan Dynasty, a unique calendar was formed that integrated the heavenly stems, earthly branches, and five elements. Around the 13th century, the Sakya Dynasty of the Yuan Dynasty designated the first day of the first month of the Tibetan calendar as the beginning of the new year, which has been followed to this day.

The Tibetan people have many festivals, among which the most solemn and most nationally significant is the Tibetan New Year. The Tibetan New Year is equivalent to the Spring Festival of the Han people and is the biggest festival of the year. Starting from the middle of December in the Tibetan calendar, people prepare festive items for eating, wearing and using during the New Year. Thousands of farmers and herdsmen flock to Lhasa to buy various New Year goods. This is the busiest season of the year in Lhasa.

The Tibetan New Year begins on December 29th in the Tibetan calendar. In the evening, every family will get together to eat "Gutu" (dough and meat porridge) to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year, and seek peace and happiness. After the family ate nine dishes of "Gutu" with laughter and laughter, they held torches, set off firecrackers, shouted "Come out" and walked to the crossroads to pray for good luck in the coming year.