The long-table banquet is recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest and longest banquet.

The banquet involves the whole village pulling out their own rectangular tables outside their houses to form one long table in the village center. Villagers serve savory dishes accompanied by home-brewed rice wine, and Dong girls make toasts to visiting guests during the meal.

According to legend, the long-table banquet originates from the uprising of Dong people in the early Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). From the year of 1378 to 1385, due to the armed conquest and tyrannical demands of the Ming Administration over the Dong ethnic group, a large-scale armed resistance of the Dong was aroused across the border areas of Hunan, Guizhou and Guangxi. Wu Mian, the rebelling leader, was respected as a hero by the Dong people. One day, he passed a Dong village with his insurrectionists and was warmly welcomed by the villagers. Everyone was eager to entertain the hero and none was willing to give up the opportunity, which caused an awkward situation. Then, a smart girl from the village came up with an idea, suggesting villagers to entertain their hero together by holding a joint banquet. So, the villagers brought some tables and connected them with some wooden planks on an open space in the village and offered various kinds of delicious food made by themselves. As a result, the long-table banquet came into being.   

Nowadays, attending a long-table banquet has become a must-experience tourism program in Xinhuang County.

(Translated by Yang Hong)