Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival
2008-08-13

Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival

The Harbin festival is one of the world's four largest ice and snow festivals, along with Japan's Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada's Quebec City Winter Carnival, and Norway's Ski Festival. It has been held since 1963. It had been interrupted for a number of years during the Cultural Revolution until it was resumed in 1985.

Officially, the festival starts from January 5th and it lasts one month. However often the exhibitions open earlier and last longer, weather permitting. Ice sculpture decoration ranges from the modern technology of lasers to traditional ice lanterns. There are ice lantern park touring activities held in many parks in the city. Winter activities in the festival include Yabuli alpine skiing, winter-swimming in Songhua River, and the ice-lantern exhibition in Zhaolin Garden. Snow carving and ice and snow recreations are world famous. 

The Derivation of the Ice Lantern
The first Ice lanterns were a winter-time tradition in northeast China. During the Qing Dynasty£¨1644 - 1911), the local peasants and fishermen often made and used ice lanterns as jack-lights during the winter months. At that time these were made simply by pouring water into a bucket that was then put out in the open to freeze. It was then gently warmed before the water froze completely so that the bucket-shaped ice could be pulled out. A hole was chiseled in the top and the water remaining inside poured out creating a hollow vessel. A candle was then placed inside resulting in a windproof lantern that gained great popularity in the region around Harbin.

From then on, people made ice lanterns and put them outside their houses or gave them to children to play with during some of the traditional festivals. Thus the ice lantern began its long history of development. With novel changes and immense advancement in techniques, today we can marvel at the various delicate and artistic ice lanterns on display.

Today's Ice Lantern
Today ice lanterns in the broad sense refer to plastic, ice and snow as raw materials which combine ice art with colored lights and music. The patterns on ice lanterns include ice and snow sculptures, flowers, architecture and much more.

Harbin Ice Festival provides the visitors each year a whole new world of ice and snow. The best collections of ice artworks are exhibited in three main places: the Sun Island Park, Harbin Ice and Snow World, and Zhaolin Park. 
At the Sun Island Park
The Sun Island Park is the site of the Snow Sculpture Exposition displaying a wonderful snow world. It has the world's largest indoor ice and snow art museum and it opens to the public from November every year. 

'Ice and Snow World' in Harbin
Harbin Ice and Snow World came into being in 1999 and is one of the world's largest ice architecture parks. The inspiration for the ice and snow sculptures there usually is derived from traditional Chinese fairy tales or world famous architectures such as the Great Wall, the Egyptian Pyramids. 

the Gate of Zhaolin Park
Zhaolin Park is a 'must see' during the Harbin Ice Festival as it has a traditional program that shows the best ice lanterns. With water, lights and natural ice from the Songhua River as the materials used the ice lanterns are made by freezing water, piling up ice or snow and then carving and decorating them.

The ice lantern park touring activities have been held here annually since 1963 and is said to be one of the top 35 tourist attractions of China. There are numerous pieces of ice artwork in the park arranged in groups according to different themes depicting Chinese classic masterworks, European folk tales and customs.

A great variety of objects such as buildings, gardens, flowers, waterfalls, European-styled churches, lions, tigers and dragons are carved from ice. In the daytime the ice sculptures are simply magnificent. And with the sparkling colored lights embedded in the sculptures coming on at night the park becomes a colorful and amazing world of ice.

Today, Harbin Ice Festival is not only an exposition of ice and snow art, but also an annual cultural event for international exchange. Every year, there are many ice sculpture experts, artists and fans from America, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Russia, China, etc. gathering in Harbin to participate ice sculpting competitions and to communicate with each other in the ice and snow world. Harbin ice lanterns have been exhibited in most of China's main cities as well as in many countries in Asia, Europe, North America, Africa and Oceania. For more than 40 years Harbin's ice and snow has been fully exploited to provide joy and fun for visitors to the city.

Now during the festival, many sporting competitions are also popular including ice-skating, sledding and so on. Weddings, parties and other entertainments are now very much a feature of this ice world, adding their own contribution to the celebrations of this great festival of art, culture, sports and tourism.