The Yuanmingyuan Spring Outing Festival Opens on April 1st — Recommended Guide to the Imperial Carriage Parade

Starting April 1, 2012, the 17th Yuanmingyuan Spring Outing Festival will kick off for a two-month run. “This year’s festival will create a spring carnival for visitors,” said Cao Yuming, director of the Yuanmingyuan Administration Office. First-time featured activities such as “Design a New Home for the Black Swans,” “I Am the Park’s Big Star,” and “Health Promenade Walk” will be introduced.

 

 

During the festival, nearly a hundred varieties of flowers will bloom in the Qichunyuan Scenic Area, Jiuzhou Scenic Area, and the Black Swan Viewing Area of the Lion Grove in Changchunyuan. Against the backdrop of blossoms including winter jasmine, peach, pear, apricot, and peony, the “Spring Fills Yuanmingyuan” themed painting activity has been inspired. Renowned calligraphy and painting artists will join children visiting the park to depict their vision of spring together. To facilitate children’s DIY projects, Yuanmingyuan will provide free paper, T-shirts in various colors, eco-friendly shopping bags, and schoolbags as special “canvases.” At the snack street, visitors can also enjoy intangible cultural heritage displays such as sugar-figure blowing, dough figurine sculpting, and Beijing monkey dolls.

Travel Tips:
       1. The organizers of the Spring Outing Festival, the Yuanmingyuan Administration Office, remind citizens and tourists: taking Beijing Metro Line 4 or buses to Yuanmingyuan is both eco-friendly and convenient.

2. During the Yuanmingyuan Spring Outing Festival, ticket prices remain at the original 10 yuan, annual passes are valid as usual, and free or discounted policies for seniors, students, and military personnel stay unchanged.

3. The Yuanmingyuan Administration Office kindly asks visitors to: behave civilly, take care of plants, cherish greenery, and avoid picking or damaging flowers and trees.

4. The Yuanmingyuan Administration Office kindly asks visitors to: not disturb or harm the peaceful lives of birds, squirrels, and other animals.

5. This Spring Outing Festival will run from April 1 to May 31.

Innovating within tradition, the Yuanmingyuan Spring Outing Festival presents a new look. The 17th edition will grandly open on April 1. Under the theme of “Spring Warmth for Family Fun, Love Gathers at Yuanmingyuan,” this two-month festival will center around “love,” offering Beijing residents ten themed garden experiences including the “Yuanmingyuan Health Promenade Walk,” “Design a New Home for the Black Swans,” and the “I Am the Park’s Big Star Talent Competition,” creating a spring garden carnival for the city.

April and May mark the height of spring at Yuanmingyuan, making it a great destination for Beijingers to enjoy the season. This year’s festival will champion the theme of “love” — under the concepts of loving the motherland, spring, life, living, health, happiness, giving, and visiting the park, it will provide a grand stage for family gatherings in the capital’s spring gardens.

As a national patriotic education base, Yuanmingyuan combines the solemnity of historical ruins with the vibrancy of its gardens, forming a unique tourist attraction that draws many young students every year. Following infrastructure improvements in 2011, the site now offers more suitable venues for student and group activities such as coming-of-age ceremonies and youth group events. In the springtime Yuanmingyuan, the Communist Youth League and Young Pioneers hold unique induction ceremonies, while high school students participate in their 18-year-old coming-of-age rites... History takes root deeply. Every visitor engaging in these activities receives a profound patriotic education.

The annual Spring Outing Festival has built up unique sights for enjoying spring at Yuanmingyuan. Here, spring waters ripple, trees offer shade, and the air is filled with floral scents. Visitors can admire nearly a hundred types of flowers, including winter jasmine, peach, pear, apricot, plum, crabapple, hibiscus, Bauhinia, forsythia, rose, magnolia, peony, and peony in the Qichunyuan, Jiuzhou, and Lion Grove Black Swan Viewing Areas of Changchunyuan.

During the “Spring Fills Yuanmingyuan” master-and-child painting event, famous calligraphy and painting artists will interact with children, using brushes to depict their own visions of a beautiful spring. To encourage DIY spirit, Yuanmingyuan provides not only paper but also colorful T-shirts, eco-friendly shopping bags, and schoolbags as canvases, allowing children to showcase their talents while giving unique spring-themed gifts to themselves or their families.

At the Spring Snack Street, visitors can taste Yuanmingyuan-style vegetable-filled buns and wontons, and enjoy a rich array of intangible cultural heritage displays such as sugar-figure blowing, dough figurine sculpting, and Beijing monkey dolls.

Yuanmingyuan’s black swans have garnered widespread attention from Beijing residents. Since six cygnets were added during this year’s Spring Festival, a corner of the lake has been affectionately dubbed the “Black Swan Lake” by visitors. Many come to capture the swans’ growth moments with cameras and camcorders. During the festival, Yuanmingyuan will launch interactive activities for bird-loving citizens, where participants can design new homes for the black swans and showcase their photos of the elegant birds.

During the festival, the Yuanmingyuan Administration Office will organize a park-themed red carpet event. At the “Yuanmingyuan Cup — I Am the Park’s Big Star” talent competition, folk singers, dancers, and instrumentalists — the “park stars” active in Beijing’s various parks — will advance through preliminary rounds to perform on stage. Judges and visitors will score their performances to determine the winners.

Officials noted that in parks such as Yuanmingyuan, Beihai, Jingshan, Yuyuantan, and the Summer Palace, there are many ordinary citizens with performance talent who use the parks as stages to make friends and showcase skills like singing, dancing, and playing instruments. They are the true stars of the parks and have created artistic corners in each. Yuanmingyuan extends an invitation to these park stars to display their talents during the festival.

Yuanmingyuan will also invite citizens to inaugurate a 2.5-kilometer “Health Promenade” during the festival. The path connects scenic water areas such as Haiyue Kaijin, Deshenggai, and Qianyuan in Changchunyuan. Along the promenade, thoughtful staff have placed signs displaying walking distance and calorie consumption tips. Amid the surrounding landscape, walkers can enjoy the scenery while improving their fitness.

Reportedly, during the festival, Yuanmingyuan will also invite entrepreneurs from Haidian District to participate in an “Entrepreneurs’ Health Walk,” creating an interactive platform with the business community.

“Peach blossoms as matchmakers, lake water as witness” — at this year’s festival, Yuanmingyuan will host its first “Peach Blossoms Bloom — Yuanmingyuan Matchmaking Event,” inviting unmarried men and women from Zhongguancun in Haidian to “seek connections.” Through a series of activities and challenges, couples will find love. This is one of the new highlight events introduced this year.

This year’s Yuanmingyuan Spring Outing Festival will also feature an “Imperial Carriage Parade” and a “Fly Your Spring Dreams” kite-flying event, aiming to create a spring garden carnival for shared enjoyment.

The Old Summer Palace, a royal garden meticulously built by five emperors of the Qing Dynasty, offers visitors a pervasive sense of imperial grandeur. Another highlight of this year’s Spring Outing Festival is the “Imperial Parade,” where actors professionally portraying the emperor, his ministers, and concubines stroll through the Old Summer Palace together, vividly recreating the grand outings of Qing emperors. The public can get an up-close look at imperial life and even take photos with the “emperor.”

During the kite-flying event, the Old Summer Palace will also invite professionals to perform kite-flying demonstrations. Members of the public can try their hand at designing and making kites. With every brushstroke in hand-painted kites, they can closely experience the charm of traditional culture. At the same time, visitors can interact with experts, learn kite-flying techniques, and send their springtime dreams soaring.

In addition, the Jun porcelain culture exhibition will be another highlight of this year’s Spring Outing Festival. Jun porcelain is not only a product but also a cultural expression. When we admire or handle Yuan or Song dynasty Jun porcelain—even a small shard—it feels as though we are having a face-to-face conversation with our ancestors. Through the patterns on the porcelain, one can sometimes even sense their joys, angers, sorrows, and delights. It’s an extraordinary experience.

During the Spring Outing Festival, the Old Summer Palace will set up three Lei Feng volunteer service stations at the South Gate, the junction of the Three Gardens, and the Black Swan Viewing Area to better serve the community.