Torch Festival Around the World: Celebrations & Cultural Traditions

The Torch Festival is a traditional festival of the Yi, Bai, Naxi, Jino, Lahu, and other ethnic groups, and is mainly celebrated in Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou, and other provinces and regions. In recent years, it has developed into a cultural festival brand with international influence. Around the twenty-fourth day of the sixth lunar month each year, Chuxiong in Yunnan, Liangshan in Sichuan, and other places hold grand Torch Festival celebrations. Tens of thousands of torches illuminate the night sky, while bullfighting, horse racing, wrestling, song, dance, and other activities unfold in spectacular succession, attracting large numbers of visitors from China and abroad. In 2024, the Chuxiong Torch Festival received more than one million tourist visits, and the festival has become an important window through which China’s ethnic minority cultures are presented to the world. With fire as its soul and light as its medium, the Torch Festival conveys to the world the universal values of brightness, passion, and hope.

Torch Festival / Global Spread

Celebrated Worldwide

Regional Highlights

The Americas

United States

The United States was one of the earliest countries in the world to hold overseas celebrations of the Yi Torch Festival. As early as 2005, the flame of the Torch Festival had already been kindled in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles: the first overseas Torch Festival (2005). On August 14, 2005, the United Chinese Ethnic Minorities Association Overseas held the opening ribbon-cutting ceremony for the first “Torch Festival” in Los Angeles, hoping to introduce this traditional festival of the Liangshan Yi people in China to mainstream American communities. The event strictly followed the three-day-and-three-night program of the international Yi Torch Festival in Liangshan, China, and was divided into three stages: “worshipping the fire,” “passing on the fire,” and “sending off the fire.” Although no real torches were lit at the venue, members of the overseas Chinese community dressed in ethnic minority costumes sang and danced, while community leaders waved electric batons glowing with fire-red light, creating the distinctive atmosphere of the Torch Festival.

Ying Yaodong, chairman of the supervisory board of the association, stated that the organization had previously held activities such as the Dai Water-Splashing Festival, and that the purpose of organizing the Torch Festival was precisely to introduce and promote China’s ethnic minorities to mainstream American society and deepen understanding of China. This was the first recorded formal overseas appearance of the Yi Torch Festival.

Arizona: the Torch Festival on stage. In Arizona, the Arizona Chinese Dance Ensemble, led by Xu Aini, performed a Yi “Torch Festival” dance at an arts festival, bringing before American audiences the festive celebrations and ethnic character of villages in Liangshan, Sichuan.

Cultural resonance among American netizens. In recent years, videos of the Yi Torch Festival have repeatedly gone viral on overseas social media. The spectacular scenes of fiery dragons filling the sky and crowds singing and dancing have astonished viewers abroad. Many American netizens have commented with emotion: “China seems to have an endless number of fascinating and distinctive festivals: the Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Water-Splashing Festival, Naadam, and Torch Festival each have their own folk traditions, carrying ethnic stories and the warmth of everyday life.” In their eyes, the Torch Festival is not merely a carnival, but a vivid expression of the vitality of China’s diverse ethnic cultures.

Oceania

Australia

Australia has become an important foothold for the spread of the Torch Festival in the Southern Hemisphere. On July 28, 2023, the twenty-sixth day of the sixth lunar month, the Australian Yunnan Association held the First Yunnan Torch Festival, together with the founding ceremony of the Association’s Youth Council and the inauguration of the newly elected executive council, in Box Hill, Melbourne. This marked the first successful staging of the Yi Torch Festival in the Southern Hemisphere.

The celebration was grand in scale. Guests included Sun Yan, Deputy Consul General of China in Melbourne; Bruce Atkinson, former President of the Victorian Legislative Council; Su Junxi, president of the Victorian Federation of Chinese Associations; other political and business representatives; as well as leaders of major Melbourne community organizations, cultural figures, and fellow Yunnan natives—around 400 people in total.

The celebration officially began at 5:30 p.m. The organizers prepared traditional costumes of Yunnan’s ethnic minorities for guests to try on and photograph, set up stalls selling Yunnan specialties such as flower cakes and Crossing-the-Bridge Rice Noodles, and taught guests the bamboo-pole dance. Professor Qin Lushan, honorary president of the Australian Yunnan Association, and its president, Li Ruge, wore full Yi ceremonial dress and hosted the celebration in Chinese, English, and Yunnan dialect.

Deputy Consul General Sun Yan stated: “Yunnan, as a place where many ethnic groups live together, has preserved distinctive and colorful ways of life and culture. The Torch Festival is one of them, carrying the Yi people’s and other ethnic minorities’ beautiful aspirations for life.” Bruce Atkinson, former President of the Victorian Legislative Council, specially wore traditional Yi clothing custom-made by Jin Yongshu, head of the Chuxiong Yi Community in Yunnan. Su Junxi, president of the Federation of Chinese Associations, proposed that at the following year’s Moomba Festival, everyone could wear the sweeping Yi skirts and walk through the streets of Melbourne to promote China’s ethnic cultures.

Second Torch Culture Festival (2024). On November 23, 2024, the Australian Yunnan Association successfully held its Second Torch Culture Festival, together with the inauguration ceremony of its fourth-term council, in Melbourne. The event stated: “Yunnan’s Torch Festival is a grand celebration of unity and multiculturalism. It not only carries profound traditions, but also shines with new brilliance in a foreign land. Like a blazing torch, it not only warms the heart, but also illuminates the connections between us.” The continued staging of the Torch Festival in Australia has allowed this traditional Yi festival to take root in the Southern Hemisphere.

New Zealand and Papua New Guinea

In July 2025, Ms. Julie Arok from Papua New Guinea experienced the Torch Festival in Yunnan and personally took part in this great celebration of tens of thousands of revelers. Through this approach of “inviting people in,” the Torch Festival is sowing seeds of cultural understanding among the peoples of Oceania’s island nations.

Europe

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom is an important node in the spread of the Torch Festival across Europe. On August 3, 2024, the first Yunnan Culture Festival was held in London, with the Yi Torch Festival serving as its climax. The event opened with an ethnic costume fashion show, in which models wore traditional clothing from Yunnan’s ethnic minorities, primarily Yi attire. The exquisite designs drew admiration from the audience. Afterwards, people gathered around the torches, singing and dancing together to celebrate the Yi people’s grandest festival.

The event attracted several hundred participants. Arianna Lucente, who had lived in Yunnan for two years beginning in 2007, said at the venue that Yunnan’s ethnic minority cultures and cuisine felt deeply familiar to her and brought back fond memories. She said: “I think London still does not know enough about China, so I am very happy to have the opportunity to let people learn about a part of China that many people know nothing about.”

Another participant, Mark Shaw, said: “This festival lets people understand who these people are, what they do, and how they live. It exposes more people to different cultures and helps us understand how different cultures interact.”

Zhang Jie, co-founder of the Yunnan Culture Festival, said that seeing so many people from different backgrounds come together to learn about and celebrate Yunnan culture was deeply gratifying.

Germany

In July 2025, young members of Germany’s “Castle Chinese Choir” traveled to Chuxiong, Yunnan, to experience the fiery celebrations of the Yi Torch Festival firsthand. After a Bimo (毕摩), a traditional Yi ritual specialist, chanted ancient melodies and lit the sacred fire, the German youths dressed in beautiful traditional Yi clothing, joined local people around the bonfire, danced the energetic “Yi Disco,” and sang songs together.

During this cross-cultural celebration, modern drone performances and traditional Yi Disco illuminated one another, while two strikingly different traditions merged within the rhythm of the flames. The German youths’ decision to “step inside” and experience the Torch Festival firsthand was a vivid example of Torch Festival culture moving from “being displayed” to “being understood”—they were no longer merely spectators, but participants, experiencers, and transmitters.

Europe’s Fire-Worship Festivals:

It is worth noting that several European countries themselves possess ancient festivals centered on “fire,” forming a dialogue across time and space with the Yi Torch Festival of China.

Scotland’s Viking Fire Festival (Up Helly Aa). Every year on the last Tuesday of January, the Shetland Islands in Scotland hold the Viking Fire Festival. Thousands of people dress as Viking warriors and parade with torches to commemorate ancient history. The festival can be traced back to the Viking Age more than a thousand years ago.

Scotland’s Celtic Fire Festival (Beltane). On the night of April 30 each year, the Celtic Fire Festival is held on Calton Hill in Scotland. People raise blazing torches, cheering and celebrating the arrival of summer. The festival originates in ancient Gaelic traditions, where fire is regarded as a symbol welcoming light and vitality.

Summer Solstice Fire Festivals of Spain and France. In 2015, the Summer Solstice Fire Festivals in the Pyrenees, jointly nominated by Spain and France, were inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The tradition is practiced in 34 municipalities in France, 26 in Spain, and 3 in Andorra. One observer noted that Spain’s summer solstice fire festival was “very much like the Yi Torch Festival in Sichuan, China.”

Britain’s Bonfire Night. Every November 5, bonfire gatherings and fireworks displays are held across the United Kingdom, with people celebrating around enormous bonfires.

Although these European “fire festivals” have different origins and cultural backgrounds from the Yi Torch Festival, they share a reverence for and worship of fire—fire can dispel evil, bring light, and bring communities together. This resonance across civilizations is the deepest cultural foundation for the Torch Festival’s journey into the world.

Asia

China

In China, the Torch Festival is the grandest festival of the year for the Yi, Bai, and other ethnic minorities.

Chuxiong, Yunnan: a high ground for the Torch Festival’s international reach. Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture is one of the country’s core centers of Yi culture. During the 2025 Chuxiong Yi Torch Festival, related information across the internet reached 564,100 entries, with domestic and international exposure totaling 1.531 billion impressions. Of these, overseas platform exposure exceeded 80 million impressions, an increase of 65% over 2024.

The Chuxiong Torch Festival featured a richly varied program, including the grand fire-worship ceremony, a mass Left-Foot Dance torch carnival involving tens of thousands of people, intangible cultural heritage displays, a dynamic Yi embroidery exhibition, boxing championships, Yi wrestling performances, and oil-pole climbing. The highest single-day visitor volume exceeded 340,000.

Liangshan, Sichuan: the homeland of the torch. On July 22, 2026, the “Homeland of the Torch · Cool Butuo” Butuo Traditional Yi Torch Festival opened grandly at Torch Square. Liangshan is China’s largest Yi-populated region, and the Torch Festival here preserves the most complete traditional rituals—striking fire from flint, lighting torches, and using fire to expel evil and demons.

Hong Kong: a testing ground for taking intangible heritage abroad. In June 2026, at the “Hometown Market” in Victoria Park, Hong Kong, the Yunnan Yi creation epic Meige (《梅葛》) appeared on a Hong Kong stage for the first time. Yunnan soprano He Shu and a Hong Kong youth orchestra jointly performed the Yi-style song The Torch of the Torch Festival (《火把节的火把》), presenting the imagery of “fire” through a cross-disciplinary fusion of ethnic vocal music and youth symphonic performance. This crossover experiment explored a new path for taking the Torch Festival’s intangible cultural heritage abroad.

Taiwan: Qingjing Torch Festival. Every year, the Qingjing area of Nantou, Taiwan, holds a Torch Festival—people raise torches high and light a bonfire in the square. The festival originates from the Yi tradition of China. The long-table banquet, meanwhile, is a traditional custom originating among the Hani people of Yunnan and bears similarities to harvest festivals among Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples.

Southeast Asia

Several Southeast Asian countries are geographically connected to southwest China through shared mountains and waters, and the Torch Festival has developed broad regional influence through the Lancang–Mekong cultural bond.

Laos and Thailand: immersive experiences by bloggers. During the 2025 Torch Festival, Surina from Laos and sisters Chen Mujun from Thailand traveled to Chuxiong, Yunnan. They changed into Yi clothing, held hands to the rhythm, and danced the Left-Foot Dance, personally joining the mass celebration of tens of thousands of people.

A Lao blogger also recorded the Yi dage (打歌), also known as “treading song” (踏歌), a folk art form combining song, dance, and music, which was included in China’s national intangible cultural heritage list in 2008. These “cultural experiencers” from the Lancang–Mekong region are bringing the passion of the Torch Festival back to their own countries.

Cultural roots linking Thailand and Laos. China’s Yi people and the Lolo peoples of Southeast Asia share deep ethnic roots. The Torch Festival is practiced both among China’s Yi people and among related ethnic groups in Southeast Asia, forming part of a shared cultural heritage across the Lancang–Mekong region.

Japan

Although Japan has no festival directly corresponding to the Yi Torch Festival, its rich traditions of fire festivals echo the Torch Festival across the East Asian cultural sphere.

Dazaifu exorcism festival—one of Japan’s major torch festivals, held every January 7 and attended by hundreds or thousands of Shinto believers, with the purpose of driving away misfortune and summoning prosperity for the coming year.

Nozawa Onsen Dosojin Fire Festival—one of Japan’s three great torch festivals, designated in 1993 as an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan.

Kurama Fire Festival—one of Kyoto’s three great unusual festivals, held every October 22 and renowned for its torch processions and bonfires.

Oniyo at Daizenji Tamataregu Shrine—a tradition with more than 1,600 years of history, listed as one of Japan’s three great fire festivals, where enormous torches burn in spectacular and intense scenes.

These Japanese fire festivals and the Yi Torch Festival share the cultural logic of “using fire to expel evil and using fire to pray for blessings,” representing diverse expressions of fire worship within East Asian civilization.

South Korea

South Korea likewise has traditional cultural festivals centered on “fire” and “light.”

The Jeju Fire Festival is described as “the world’s largest torch festival reinterpreting Jeju’s ancient pastoral culture in a modern way.” Held regularly every March, it conveys wishes for peace and good health throughout the year and hopes for a bountiful harvest.

The Yeondeunghoe, or Lotus Lantern Festival, has a history of more than 1,200 years and was designated a national intangible cultural heritage of South Korea in 2012.

These Korean festivals of “fire” and “light” echo the Yi Torch Festival at the level of spiritual meaning: all are collective human prayers for brightness, hope, and renewal.

Bangladesh

During the 2023 Torch Festival, a young Bangladeshi man livestreamed the grandeur of Yunnan’s Torch Festival to audiences around the world—the long-table banquet, song-and-dance performances, the grand fire-worship ceremony, and the bonfire evening.

He “invited the world to share Yunnan’s night of celebration,” carrying the passion of the Torch Festival to audiences in South Asia.

Mutual Learning Among Civilizations

In-Depth Feature

The Torch Festival is gradually moving from a traditional festival of the ethnic minorities of southwest China onto the world stage. Its path differs from those of the Spring Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, and Dragon Boat Festival—if the Spring Festival takes “reunion” as its emotional core, the Mid-Autumn Festival the “bright moon” as its cultural symbol, and the Dragon Boat Festival “dragon boat racing” as its cultural emblem, then the Torch Festival takes “fire” as its most primal cultural totem and “light and carnival” as its most universal emotional connection.

Fire: a cultural language across civilizations. Fire was one of the earliest forces of nature mastered by humankind, and it is also a sacred symbol shared by civilizations everywhere. The Yi ancestors regarded fire as a totem: “Fire is the totem of the Yi ancestors; it is the life and soul of this people.”

In Europe, Scotland’s Celts welcome summer with flames; in Spain and France, summer solstice fire festivals have been inscribed as intangible cultural heritage of humanity; in Japan, fire festivals have been passed down for a thousand years.

Fire needs no translation. Wherever people may live, firelight can illuminate darkness; whatever the culture, reverence for and worship of fire are shared human impulses. As one observer remarked, Spain’s fire festival is “very much like the Yi Torch Festival in Sichuan, China”—this is not coincidence, but a common human feeling toward fire.

The Yi Torch Festival’s three days and three nights: worshipping the fire, passing on the fire, and sending off the fire. The Yi Torch Festival strictly follows three stages: “worshipping the fire,” “passing on the fire,” and “sending off the fire.” This sequence fully embodies the Yi ancestors’ understanding of fire—fire is sacred and therefore worshipped; fire can be transmitted and therefore passed on; fire must be respectfully sent away and therefore ceremonially farewelled.

When the first overseas Torch Festival in Los Angeles strictly followed this sequence, the festival’s core spirit was fully transmitted in a foreign land—not merely through the replication of outward form, but through the steadfast preservation of its cultural essence.

“Inviting people in” and “going out”: the Torch Festival’s two-way transmission. The international spread of the Torch Festival reveals a clear two-way path.

On one side, overseas Chinese communities actively “go out”—the first Torch Festival in Los Angeles in 2005, the first Yunnan Torch Festival in Melbourne in 2023, and the Yunnan Culture Festival in London in 2024 were all examples of overseas Chinese consciously promoting ethnic festivals abroad through cultural initiative.

On the other side, foreign visitors “come in” to experience the festival themselves—German youths travel to Chuxiong, Yunnan, to join the torch carnival; Lao and Thai bloggers dance the Left-Foot Dance in Yunnan; a Bangladeshi participant livestreams the grandeur of the Torch Festival.

This two-way interaction of “inviting people in” and “going out” means that the transmission of the Torch Festival is no longer a one-directional form of “cultural export,” but a two-way “cultural dialogue.”

Torch Festival narratives in overseas Chinese-language media. During the 2025 Torch Festival, representatives from 20 overseas Chinese-language media organizations from 17 countries traveled to Chuxiong, Yunnan. They joined the sea of people to experience the torch carnival and explored the “secret of fiery prosperity” in the Yi homeland.

As bridges connecting China and the world, overseas Chinese-language media are bringing the story of the Torch Festival to readers across the globe.

Civilizational dialogue between the Torch Festival and the world’s “fire festivals.” The most striking cultural phenomenon in the Torch Festival’s overseas spread is its dialogue and resonance with fire festivals around the world.

Scotland’s Viking Fire Festival and Celtic Fire Festival, the summer solstice fire festivals of Spain and France, Japan’s many fire festivals, and South Korea’s Fire Festival all have different origins and cultural backgrounds, yet they share a deeper logic: using fire to dispel evil, using fire to pray for blessings, and using fire to welcome renewal.

In 2015, the Summer Solstice Fire Festivals in the Pyrenees, jointly nominated by Spain and France, were inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The Yi Torch Festival itself was also submitted for UNESCO intangible cultural heritage recognition in 2014. Although it was not selected at that time, its cultural value had already attracted attention and recognition at the international level.

As one scholar has pointed out, the Torch Festival “not only plays an important social role, but also serves as an important bridge for social interaction and cultural accommodation between Yi and non-Yi residents.”

As the Torch Festival moves from the mountains of southwest China into the wider world, the spirit it carries—unity, carnival, and blessing—is becoming a warm flame of dialogue between different civilizations.

Closing Note

Lingering Notes

The global spread of the Torch Festival traces a path of light from the mountains of southwest China to the world’s five continents. Its inclusion on China’s national intangible cultural heritage list in 2006 marked the festival’s movement from a folk celebration into state protection, while its spread across multiple countries and regions around the world demonstrates that the primal totem of fire can cross languages and national borders.

Unlike the reunion of the Spring Festival, the bright moon of Mid-Autumn, or the dragon boats of Duanwu, the overseas spread of the Torch Festival takes “fire” as its most primal cultural totem and “light and carnival” as its most universal emotional connection—fire needs no translation, for light is a shared human aspiration; carnival needs no explanation, for the desire to release passion and welcome hope knows no borders.

In the Americas, Los Angeles held the first overseas Torch Festival as early as 2005. In Oceania, Melbourne successfully hosted the first Torch Festival in the Southern Hemisphere in 2023. In Europe, London’s Yunnan Culture Festival reached its climax with the Torch Festival, while German youths traveled all the way to Yunnan to experience the torch carnival firsthand. In Asia, the Chuxiong Torch Festival surpassed 80 million impressions on overseas platforms, while friends from Laos, Thailand, and Bangladesh participated in and shared the festival in different ways.

More moving still is the moment when Scotland’s Viking Fire Festival illuminates the northern European night sky, when the summer solstice fire festivals of Spain and France are inscribed as intangible cultural heritage of humanity, and when Japan’s fire festivals continue across a thousand years—the world’s many “fire festivals” and the Yi Torch Festival are engaged in a dialogue across civilizations and across distance.

Like that flame that never goes out—it has crossed a thousand years and remains as blazing as at the beginning; it crosses mountains and seas and still illuminates the human heart.

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