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Fireworks, singing, dancing into the wee hours of the morning --it's carnival time in Shanghai. Itmay not quite be the revelry of Rio, but Chinese and foreigners together are letting their hair down to promote tourism and enjoy the holiday.
The annual month-long tourism festival took off Sept. 14 in Shanghai, one of China's most modern cities, bringing arts and entertainment from various foreign countries.
The festival lasts through the seven-day National Day holiday, which is called a "golden week" for tourism.
One carnival event held the night of the 20th was organized, for the first time, by a foreign company. Jazz and rock & roll bands and dance troupes from Brazil, Russia, Australia, Singapore,Japan and the Republic of Korea as well as gypsy artists performedon Nanjing Road as the festivities went on until the wee hours of the morning.
Thousands of foreigners in Shanghai were invited to the carnival that night.
Most local Chinese initially shied away from singing and dancing in public but at 1:30 a.m. a dancing foreign couple broke the ice and people all over the street began to join in the revelry in the moonlight.
"I like having a carnival for our own city," a local resident said. "It is also a chance for the rest of the world to know our city better."
The tourism festival in Shanghai started 12 years ago. The first couple of years the sponsor invited singers and dancers to perform in the evening and in recent years carnivals were held.
"Traditional Chinese culture is against being 'crazy' about things but we really hope people can be crazy about and enjoy artsfrom all over the world in the carnival," said Dao Shuming, a local official.
Three fireworks shows were held on Sept. 30 and Oct. 3 and 6, operated by Spanish, Dutch and Canadian fireworks companies.
The sponsor said the fireworks shows, accompanied by exotic music, attracted the most stylish people in the city.
The city introduced the fireworks show with background music two years ago. So far fireworks shows from about ten countries such as Japan, France, Portugal, Australia and Italy have been staged here attracting around 2 million spectators.
(Xinhua News Agency Oct 8, 2002 )
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