The 20th and 21st editions of the "Explore Huaihua Museum--National Day Fair" intangible cultural heritage handicraft flea market will be held on Oct. 2 and 3. Each day, 44 specialty stalls will line the museum's corridor, offering two full days of shopping and hands-on craft activities.
This edition will feature an expanded "You Check In, We Pay" campaign. 18 activities will be available free of charge, with 110 experience vouchers issued each day and 220 available over the two-day event. To improve the visitor experience, organizers will allocate the vouchers across the stalls and balance the number available for different activities. The arrangement is intended to prevent vouchers for popular activities from running out too quickly while those for less popular activities go unused, giving successful participants a better chance to try a craft that interests them.
These activities cover handicrafts, food, incense culture, pottery and more. Food lovers can make poria cakes and take them home, while families looking for a relaxed activity can try fuse-bead art, hammer-and-bead pixel art or sweet-themed DIY crafts. Visitors seeking a quieter experience can make traditional rubbings on xuan paper or join a Song Dynasty-style tea-whisking session, pouring water from a kettle and watching froth gradually form on the tea. Other novel activities include traditional seal-incense making at Yuqiong Incense Hall, hand-painted eggshells at the Eggshell Painting Studio and crystal wish bottles at the Mineral Shop. Cloisonné wire inlay, pyrography on gourds, Wushui paper-cutting, dragon-kiln earthenware modeling, botanical scent appreciation and DIY sachets will also be offered. Each voucher provides access to a distinctive hands-on activity.
Participation is simple and convenient. Visitors can take a photo or short video at the market and post it on Douyin, Xiaohongshu or WeChat Moments with the hashtag "ExploreHuaihuaMuseum," tagging Huaihua Museum's official account. After staff at the service desk verify the post, participants can enter a draw for an experience voucher. Voucher holders may complete the activity on site and take home the finished item. A Mid-Autumn Festival promotion will also continue during the National Day holiday. Participants who post in the same way and collect 18 likes can receive a gift after verification at the service desk. Gifts are limited and available while supplies last.
Three specialty stalls—the Eggshell Painting Studio, Yuqiong Incense Hall and the Hammer-a-Bead Shop—will make their market debut, while the popular Huitong jade-carving stall will return. At the Eggshell Painting Studio, visitors can buy finished pieces or use fine brushes to create their own designs on eggshells. Yuqiong Incense Hall will offer traditional incense products, including blended-incense bead bracelets, incense sticks, incense coils and incense pellets. It will also host a parent-child workshop where participants blend fragrances and string incense beads while learning about traditional incense culture. At the Hammer-a-Bead Shop, children can use small hammers to tap colorful beads into a range of pixel-art designs.
During the National Day holiday, Huaihua Museum's corridor will host 44 stalls and 18 hands-on craft activities each day. Residents and visitors are invited to experience intangible cultural heritage crafts for themselves in a laid-back manner and take home a personal memento of the holiday.
(Translated by Feng Tao)