Lhasa celebrates Shoton Festival

LHASA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Lhasa City, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, started celebrating the traditional annual Shoton Festival on Monday.

The event began at Drepung Monastery, the largest monastery of Tibetan Buddhism's Gelug Sect, where a large thangka painting of the Buddha was on display.

"My husband and I came here last night. After worshipping the thangka, we will go to the Sera Monastery and watch Tibetan opera for several days before returning home," said 70-year-old Rinqen Wangmo from Nagarze, Shannan City.

In addition to exhibitions, Tibetan opera performances and Tibetan equestrianism, the week-long extravaganza will also include hiking, yogurt-eating and beer-drinking contests, and a Tibetan-style fashion show.

The Shoton Festival, also known as the Yogurt Banquet Festival, has been held since the 11th century. It was originally a religious occasion when locals would offer yogurt to monks who had finished meditation retreats.

In the first half of 2017, Lhasa received about 3.86 million domestic and foreign tourists, a year-on-year increase of 18.21 percent, generating tourism revenue of about 5.1 billion yuan (764 million U.S. dollars).