A girl performs peacock dance during the Water Splashing Festival celebration held by the Crowne Plaza Beijing Sun Palace hotel in Beijing on April 11.[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

In celebration of the New Year in the Dai people's calendar, the annual Water Splashing Festival falls on April 11-13 this year. Nowadays the festival is celebrated beyond Yunnan. Even in Beijing, you can join the celebrations of the traditional ethnic festival.

Crowne Plaza Beijing Sun Palace presented the fifth “Splashing Water Festival” from 11 to 14 April 2013. During the festival, not only all the guests were able to join the dances to celebrate this traditional New Year of Dai ethnic minority in Yunnan, but also they feasted on the splendid buffet of Xishuangbanna barbeque and Yunnan snack in the newly opened Yunnan restaurant---Rainbow Village.

Water Splashing Festival, also known as the “Festival for Bathing Budda” is the equivalent of New Year celebration to the Dai ethnic minority. During the festival, the Dai people, wearing colorful costumes, carry clean water first to the temples to wash the Buddha and then splash each other with water. It is a way of washing away the old year and ushering in the new.

Every year this Water Splashing Festival is celebrated at Crowne Plaza Beijing Sun Palace where colorful Yunnan costumes and décor creates the celebratory atmosphere. Cultural dances were staged and authentic Yunnan cuisines were specially prepared.

Different from the previous, the fifth water festival this year featured the famous Xishuangbanna barbeque and Yunnan snack in a buffet in Rainbow Village, the hotel’s new Yunnan restaurant. And Rainbow Village hosts the only Yunnan-style cocktail bar in Beijing, with more than 10 varieties of Yunnan alcoholic drinks to be tried.

Enchanting miniature Yunnan roof structures form the grand entranceways to Rainbow Village. Lined with 26 red lanterns representing the 26 different ethnic groups, chimes rustling in the wind, the real essence of Yunnan is presented here in its crystallized form. With a beautiful variety of ethnic costumes to choose from, the waiter and waitresses are decked up in colorful costumes from Xishuangbanna, making one wants to take up a camera and snap away.

Anna Stackler, general manager of the Crowne Plaza Beijing Sun Palace hotel, celebrates the Water Splashing Festival with guests in Beijing on April 11.[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]