Shandong Events

Shandong’s calendar is anchored by a two-and-a-half-thousand-year-old ceremony and a very large beer festival.

Confucius Birthday ceremony — 28 September, Qufu

The shidian rite at the Confucius Temple is a reconstruction of Zhou-dynasty court ritual and is performed with considerable seriousness. Eight rows of eight dancers — the number reserved for the highest rank of sacrifice — move slowly holding pheasant feathers and flutes, accompanied by bronze bells and stone chimes played on reconstructed ancient instruments, while offerings are made and texts recited. The ceremony was banned for decades and was revived from the 1980s; it now anchors a week-long cultural festival, and descendants of the Kong family attend from around the world. Tickets for the main rite are limited and the town fills.

Qingdao International Beer Festival — August

Sixteen days and among the largest beer festivals in Asia, with tents, several million visitors and a good deal of the province’s summer social life. It began in 1991 and is modelled loosely on Munich.

Weifang International Kite Festival — April

The largest kite festival in the world, in the city that has made kites since the Ming, with competitors from dozens of countries and enormous dragon kites hundreds of metres long.

Temple fairs and the spring festival — January or February

Shandong keeps a strong temple-fair tradition around Chinese New Year, with woodblock New Year prints pasted on doors, stilt walkers and lion dances, and the Yangjiabu print workshops at their busiest. The fairs at Qufu and in the Jinan temples are the largest, and they are attended by families rather than staged for visitors.

Sunrise on Mount Tai

Not an event but a ritual, performed daily by everyone who has climbed the previous afternoon.