Chinese people welcome Longtaitou Festival

Traditional Chinese Dragon Head Raising Festival, or Longtaitou Festival, falls on the second day of the second lunar month every year. People from different provinces have their own ways to celebrate the festival, which is March 13 this year. It is called "dragon raising its head" because the dragon is traditionally regarded as the deity in charge of rain.

Tofu balls are laid out to dry in Sihua village, East China's Fujian province. Villagers make the tofu and vegetable balls to pray for family and business. After being dried, the balls will be put in bowls or red bags and held in a tray by a young man for villagers to fight over. People bring them home and eat them on the day.

Traditional chengyao cakes are sold in Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu province. Suzhou has a tradition of eating chengyao cake on this day as an old saying goes: If you eat chengyao cake on Longtaitou, your waist will not hurt all year. Chengyao cake is a kind of Chinese traditional cake made with sticky rice.

People in parts of Shandong province eat fried beans to celebrate the festival.

Primary school students in Zaozhuang, East China's Shandong province, bring fried beans from home and compete to see who has the tastiest, March 13, 2013. [Ji Zhe/Asianewsphoto]