Ice festival tourists in China - 19th January 2024

Lots of people are visiting an ice festival in China. The festival makes beautiful buildings from ice.

The pandemic stopped the festival. But now, it’s back. 30,000 people visited it every day. The festival had 163,000 visitors in the New Year holidays. These visitors spent $6.45 million.

There are lots of Chinese buildings. There are ice bridges, ice castles, and an ice cathedral too.

The buildings light up in different colours at night. And there are fireworks.

Zhao Ying likes the ice buildings and the fireworks.

Zhao Ying: "Even though it’s a bit cold, I think the ice sculptures are really beautiful. Also we just saw a fireworks show. I was very shocked because I’ve never seen fireworks like that before. It was really worth it."

Lots of people want to visit the festival. It’s now making a lot of money.

The temperature is very cold. It’s minus 24 degrees celsius. But three million people come to Harbin for the festival.

Lots of the visitors are from southern China. It’s warm there. These visitors often wear hats with ears. Local people call them "Little Potatoes". This hashtag was popular on social media. These students came to see the snow.

Fu: "Also I think going through the cold and preparing for it is part of the fun experience of coming to Harbin, everybody preparing together, and sharing how to prepare how to get through the cold.

Lin: "Yes, but even though we prepared a lot, my feet still can’t handle it. I need to go indoors."