The Torch Festival is a traditional festival celebrated among some ethnic groups in southwestern China, such as the Yi, Bai, Hani, Lisu, Naxi, Pumi and Lahu etc. The festival features lighting up torches, hence its name. It usually falls in early June of the lunar calendar or on the 24th or 25th of the month, with three days of celebrations. 
Origin
The origin of the festival may have something to do with the worship of fire by ancestors, who believed fire had the power to repel insects, drive away evils and to protect crop growth. For some ethnic groups, it is a tradition in the festival for elders to share farming experience with young people and educate them on taking care of crops.
Setting up Torch
The Bai celebrate the annual Torch Festival on the 25th of the sixth month of the Chinese lunar calendar in a special way. They wear costumes and butcher pigs and sheep for a feast. Children dye their fingernails red with a kind of flower root. On the eve of the festival, people get everything ready for the big celebration. They set up a large torch about 20 meters high made of stalks and pine branches. On the top of the torch sits a large flag. Several small flags are fixed around the torch, printed with auspicious Chinese characters meaning peaceful land, favorable weather, bumper harvest, and abundant farm animals. Fruits, fireworks, and lanterns are hung around the torch.
Worshipping Ancestors and Horse Riding
The next day, people first go to their ancestors’ tombs and hold a memorial ceremony, bringing offerings and burning small torches and papers that symbolize money. People have dinner earlier than usual. Then, after dinner, the young and the old gather at the village square to watch the big torch and go horse riding. Both adults and children take part in the horse riding. Before they ride away, they go around the torch three times. Those who don’t ride the horse go home to enjoy the torches in front of the houses and then select the most beautiful torch of the village. Young mothers carry babies on their back and walk around the village torch three times to pray for the health of their babies.
Lighting Torch
At nightfall, the senior people of the village lead the other villagers to offer sacrifices to the torch and to kowtow. After this is done, several young men climb up the torch and light it. In no time, a flame rages, accompanied by drumbeats and the sound of firecrackers. Such a spectacular scene it is! As the fire continues, broken bamboo sticks fall to the ground and people try their best to catch them. Those who catch the sticks are thought of as lucky and are warmly congratulated. The lucky ones entertain the other villagers at their homes with cigarettes, wine, and tea.
Torch Playing
The festival reaches its climax with the traditional torch playing. Young men and women hold a torch. When they meet someone, they scatter colophony powder onto the torch fire and the fire flares up. People think this expels whammy from their bodies. Then, young people go to the farms and fields with the torch in the hope of eliminating pests. Near the end of the celebration, people lay torches on the ground and set them on fire. Now it is time for people to jump over the fire three times, one by one. They jump and pray to the god of fire for security and good luck. Finally, they go home filled with excitement and the celebration ends.
by Xiao Xiao @ InteractChina.com
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For the first course of tea, the tea needs to be put into a small pottery jar first and roasted on fire until the tealeaves become yellow and give off a charred smell. After added with boiled water, the tea is ready for drink in small cups. It is amber in color with rich fragrance and a bitter taste, meaning that one will suffer a lot before she/he starts his or her career.
The Three-course Tea of the Bai ethnic minority became a ceremony for treating guests or friends of the people of Bai in as early as the Ming Dynasty, delivering people the profound connotation of treating life and career with an ordinary and placid mindset.
Bai women hope for a daughter to help with domestic work. Before she gives birth, a woman’s parents will send “delivery-hastening” food to her, which always includes a boiled egg with a needle in it. When eating the egg, the women will first see whether the needle is pointing up or down. An upward-pointing needle heralds the arrival of a boy, while the converse hints to the birth of a girl. If the first born baby is a girl, she is thought to bring happiness to her parents and the whole family.
If the first born baby is a girl, she is carried in an embroidered baby carrier called a guobei, which is unique to the Bai nationality. The epaulet of the guobei is usually made of black flannel with embroidered peony flowers in the center and plum blossom and chrysanthemum on both sides, all surrounded by dancing butterflies and a phoenix above and lotus with green leaves, magpies, animals, and flowers at the bottom.
The lower part is usually made of white cloth with patterns of balls pieced together from cloth strips. The tie braces are embroidered to match the entire bright color of the guobei. This guobei is said to not only protect the women’s waist and belly, but also make the baby free and comfortable on the adult’s back, where she cannot interrupt the work of her mother. 
The Bai people believe that flowers are symbol of happiness and auspiciousness and hope girls are as pure and pretty as flowers, so many names are connected with flowers. Jinhua (golden flower) means the girl is as precious as gold. Today, the name Jinhua is recognized as a Bai name, because it has come to symbolize the good nature of Bai women. The life of Bai women is a struggle to create a life as beautiful as flowers.
Carrying the bride on the back is a typical marriage tradition in Bai ethnic minority. During the wedding ceremony, the groom has to carry his bride on his back, walking along the route in the shape of the number eight. 
While in some other places, the groom need not go to escort his bride to his home and instead invites his best men to do it. The best men go to the bride’s home with the music played by Suona, a folk musical instrument. When the best men arrive, the bride’s family does not immediately go out to welcome them until Suona players finish playing the joyous music for six times.
Another interesting tradition in Bai wedding is the guests can pinch the bride for good luck. The bride cannot get angry even when she feels painful.
There is a vast repertoire of tie-dye patterns, including flowers, plants, birds, mammals, fish, insects, folk characters and symbols, most of which are wishes for auspiciousness and good luck. The 1,000 or more tie-dye designs also reflect Bai history, culture, customs and aesthetic preferences. Having both decorative and practical applications, tie-dyed fabric is fashioned into both clothing and items of interior décor.
Bai tie-dyeing alone uses Radix isatidis, a Chinese medicinal herb used to dissipate heat, remove toxic substances and diminish inflammation and detumescence, as a dyeing agent. It once grew in wild profusion, but high demand of tie-dye articles has depleted the herb, and the Bai people now cultivate Radix isatidis in mountainous areas.
Tie, was originally named knotting, means that after the selection of cloth material, according to the requirement of the motif and pattern, the craftsmen take methods such as pinching & crimpling, folding, turning & rolling, squeezing & pulling to make the clothe become certain shapes and then stitch and bind, and tighten them, so strings of “knots” appear on the material.
Dip-dyeing means that the makers dip and wash the well-made “knots” with clean water and then put them in the dye vat. It can be soaked and dyed in cold, and it can also be dyed with hot water; after a certain period of time, it is taken out and air dried, and then the cloth is put in the dye vat again, and the actions aforesaid should be repeated for several times. After each time, the cloth will become more “blue”. The parts which have been stitched become nice-looking patterns naturally, as the dyes fail to reach them; the stitches are not the same, the dyeing degrees are not the same, so many arbitrations are presented on the cloth, thus the artist flavor come out.
The houses of the Bai people fall into three categories, according to the material, decorations, and furnishings. The three categories are: bamboo sawali house and thatched cottage, wooden house, and house with tiled roof. This division reflects the different economic levels and the different geographical environments.
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