Flower festival blooms in Longli county, Guizhou

The Chaxiang village in Longli county, Guizhou province, is celebrating the seventh Cili Flower Appreciation, Tourism and Culture Festival on May 19, while villagers, in traditional ethnic costumes, sing and dance.

The village has over 1,400 hectares of cili flowers which are currently in bloom. Wednesday is also a local traditional festival of several ethnic groups known as "Siyueba", which means April 8 in Chinese lunar calendar, when people celebrate the harvest and share food.

Villagers in Chaxiang once depended on logging for a living, but now the village has developed a fruit industry based on cili, to both protect environment and improve people's incomes. The annual average per capita net income of its roughly 700 residents has reached about 13,000 yuan ($2,020), according to the village.

Wang Jin contributed to this story.