ILEA001236358: CHINA-LANTERN FESTIVAL-CELEBRATION (CN)

Ice-Snow World in Harbin - China

Children play at the Harbin Ice-Snow World in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Dec. 21, 2024. The world's largest ice-and-snow theme park, the 26th edition of the Harbin Ice-Snow World, officially opened at 10 a.m. in Harbin, the capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province also known as the "city of ice." Themed "Dream of Winter, Love among Asia," the park was built using 300,000 cubic meters of ice and snow, incorporating elements inspired by the upcoming 2025 Harbin Asian Winter Games, which will open next February, right after China's Spring Festival holiday. It is also the first major international ice and snow event hosted by China since the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. With an overall planned area of 1 million square meters, up from last year's 800,000 square meters, the park is the largest in its 26-year history. Photo by Wang Jianwei/Xinhua/ABACAPRESS.COM

Zhentang Township In Tibet

This combo photo shows Namkha, an inheritor of the Zhentang Sherpa dance, a national level intangible cultural heritage, adjusting her head-wear while performing on Nov. 27, 2021 (above, photo by Xinhua photographer Sun Ruibo), and two Sherpa women helping Namkha put on traditional costumes on Dec. 13, 2024 (photo by Xinhua photographer Tenzin Nyida) in Zhentang Township, Dinggye County of Xigaze, southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region. Zhentang is a remote township bordering Nepal in Dinggye County in the city of Xigaze. Besieged by forests at the foot of Qomolangma deep in the Himalayas, the township has an average altitude of over 2,000 meters and is home to more than 2,600 Sherpa people. Zhentang, meaning "path for transportation," earned its name when Sherpa people would carry large amounts of daily necessities across the steep terrain long ago. Thanks to improved transportation and telecommunication facilities, the Sherpa people in the once-isolated township at the China-Nepal border are now connect