Not a single traffic light exists on Daxing street, a narrow, winding 4,500-meter-long road that, on a single day every fall, hosts over 4,000 tables for the town’s largest festival: the annual Long Street Banquet. The main event, which takes place in Yunnan province’s Lüchun county during the 10th Month New Year Festival celebrations, is an important tradition for the local Hani minority, who account for over 87 percent of the region’s population. Thousands of residents flock to the street for the banquet dressed in their traditional, beautifully embroidered vests and beaded headdresses to feast on an array of local dishes. All the while, thunderous toasts of “Duosa! Duosa! Duosa!”—cheers in the Hani dialect—ring through the air as people merrily clink their glasses with family, tourists, and newly made friends.

Boasting 2,041 tables at its first gathering in 2004, the Long Street Banquet was heralded domestically as the world’s longest banquet, and has since only grown in scale. Last year’s celebrations, for example, which coincided with the 65th anniversary of the founding Lüchun county, comprised a staggering 4,065 tables. Although this year’s festivities did not quite reach that scale, Lüchun’s 240,000 residents still prepared 3,200 tables on November 17 and organized a host of activities from November 12 to 18, attracting over 110,000 visits from domestic and international tourists.

Perched atop the lofty Ailao Mountain ridge at 1,700 meters above sea level, Lüchun sits on the southwestern edge of Honghe prefecture, the rolling mountains of Vietnam visible to the south. Originally called Liucun, or the “Six Villages,” a reference to the six main villages that were situated along its mountain ridge, Lüchun, literally “Green Spring,” was officially established in 1958 and named by Premiere Zhou Enlai in honor of the region’s year-round spring-like weather, lush, green mountains, and clear streams. Now, with its signature three-story “mushroom” thatched-roof houses and vivid murals capturing local Hani traditions, Lüchun is a crucible of Hani culture. Pedestrians strolling along its central Daxing street will find Hani script inscribed below Chinese characters on its street signs, and rice terraces carved right into the mountains below.

For the Hani residents of Lüchun, the Long Street Banquet is a chance to showcase their culture and natural beauty to the world. Li Kunliang, deputy general manager of Lüchun Tengda Capital and Investments Operation Group, one of the main companies responsible for managing the event, says, “Lüchun’s Long Street Feast is a cultural celebration and a grand gathering of national unity. People set aside divisions of ethnic groups or ‘you and me,’ coming together to interact, share, and exchange. The event showcases a profound sense of unity among all ethnicities in Lüchun.”

Today, approximately 1.7 million Hani people live in southwestern China, including over 210,000 in Lüchun county, with smaller enclaves also found in northern Vietnam and Myanmar known as Akha people. Many consider Lüchun the heart of Hani culture, not only because of its location, which has the highest concentration of Hani people, but also for its standard tongue of the Hani language, which belongs to the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family.​

While numerous long street banquets still occur throughout Honghe prefecture, Lühcun’s Long Street Banquet is by far the grandest and best known internationally. However, Zhang Hongzhen, a professor and researcher at the College of Ethnic Minority Studies at Honghe University in Mengzi, Yunnan, and a member of the Hani minority, states, “All Hani long street banquets in Yunnan are the same in that they’re a way to celebrate the year’s harvest, give thanks to both ancestors and the nature, and to bless each other.” She adds that for the Hani people, the entire day is an orchestrated tribute to the heavens in hopes of a year of bountiful crops, agreeable weather, and overall prosperity.

Apart from being an important Hani tradition and holiday, the Long Street Feast has gradually transformed into a pivotal economic booster for the county with support from the local government. “They’ve really put great amounts of strength and energy behind it. Just recently, they were promoting the Long Street Banquet in Kunming,” says Zhang. “Lüchuns’s Long Street Banquet has now reached a grand scale. It’s become the window for showcasing Hani culture.”

Li Kunliang adds, “The Long Street Feast is both a cultural cornerstone and an economic catalyst for Lüchun county, symbolizing its leap toward an era of cultural tourism.” He shared that this year’s Long Street Banquet generated over 136 million yuan via tourism, bringing economic benefits to a variety of local industries, including households that provide food for the banquet, those specializing in artisanal products, and those who offer accommodations for visitors. In addition, local apparel stores dedicated to the rental of traditional Hani outfits offer hand-stitched costumes for as much as 1,000 yuan to tourists anxious to participate and immerse themselves in the festivities.

Outfits for Hani women usually include black material embellished with a variety of colorful woven emblems such as moons, stars, flowers, and animals, in particular, silver pheasants, a deeply symbolic entity in Hani culture and considered their spiritual guide. They also wear headscarves called baotou that are adorned with an assortment of delicate ornaments representing the different Hani-ethnic branches throughout Lüchun county. Meanwhile, Hani men wear simpler, double-breasted black jackets or more elaborate vests. Other ethnic minorities, such as the Yi, Yao, and Dai, who can also be seen participating in the parade and festivities, are discerned by their own particular wardrobes.

On the morning of the banquet, the main thoroughfare of Daxing street is roused by booming drums and the jingling of tin jewelry hanging off of the elaborately stitched outfits worn by prancing dancers. As the feast begins, bamboo tables heave with a selection of over 40 different local dishes, like Hani-style dipped chicken, rice terrace fish, glutinous rice, spicy beef jerky, and freshly picked marinated vegetables. Endless boxes of hongmijiu (红米酒), or red rice liquor, are drunk alongside the meal and opened ceremoniously to welcome new guests to the table, with locals often challenging tourists to see how many tables they can toast until they can drink no more. Alongside the rowdy meal, locals and government personnel vigorously promote regional products, including Lüchun’s flavorful green tea, staple red terrace rice, and arrowroot powder.

By evening, the atmosphere is reaching a boozy crescendo, and guests, contented after finishing multiple rounds of delicious Hani food and drinks, are invited to experience the harvest drum dance. A group of Hani men signal the beginning of the dance by beating large mang drums, carried at waist-heigh and secured around their shoulders with a red cloth, and chant as they make their way up Daxing street, bathed in a royal blue light courtesy of rows of street lamps shaped like their revered silver pheasant. “The Hani people believe the sound of the drum connects to the gods above; the louder you drum, the clearer the gods will hear, bringing greater auspiciousness,” Zhang explains.

As the light fades, crowds gather next to a large stage and a towering silver pheasant statue in Lüchun’s main city square, Shuangyong. Performers step to and fro as they perform the traditional lezuo dance (乐作舞), while others sing popular Hani-ethnic songs, which continue to blare out deep into the night. Tourists and locals alike link arms, sing along, and dance merrily around a large bonfire in circles, ushering in what is hoped to be another prosperous year and, perhaps, another world record.