Ice Lantern Garden Party

Covering an area of 6.5 hectare, the Ice Lantern Garden Party in Harbin City is the earliest and biggest artistic exhibition of the ice lantern in the open air in the world. It is listed as one of the 35 national 'absolutely rare and wonderfully beautiful' scenic spots by National Tourist Office. The Party was initiated in 1963 and from then on it has been held every winter in Zhaolin Park, which shows about 1,500 pieces of traditional ice lanterns. It is considered as a beautiful name card to Harbin City.

The Ice Lantern Garden Party is a remarkable accomplishment of people in Harbin who make full use of the local natural resources. The artisans in Harbin utilize the ice from Songhua River to create the wonderful artworks of ice sculptures. Almost all the artworks take on a vitality and charming view.

The original ice lanterns of Harbin were rough and simple in history. From the very beginning, they were once used for lighting at night when the fishermen were fishing in the Songhua River, then and used as decoration in front of the gates. As time goes on, the ice lanterns are gradually accepted as an art-form in Harbin. They embodied very unique cultural features and artistic fascination. Now it has evolved into a local traditional festival in that city called Harbin Ice Festival held on January 5th every year.

Nowadays the ice lanterns have become the pride of local people. The art of ice lantern making has reached maturity. It is a unique art exhibition of ice and snow which gathers multiple subjects such as gardening, architecture, sculpture, theatrics, Chinese painting, Chinese literature and Chinese music, which causes great influence both at home and abroad. Meanwhile, modern science and technology are applied to show us the multicolored and exquisitely carved ice lanterns. So many different artworks are strewn at random around the Ice Lantern Garden Party to create a perfect world of ice and snow.

Harbin Lantern Garden Party officially gets going on 5 January and runs for more than two months. During the period of the party a competition of ice carvings will be held in Zhaolin Park. The craftsmen from America, Japan, Singapore, Canada, Russia and altogether more than 10 countries will be invited to join in the competition with the enthusiasts all over China in purpose of interchanging their craft of ice carvings. It is a party for friendship more than a party of competition. So we say the party is the cradle to the craftsman of ice carvings.




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