Despite the hot weather yesterday afternoon, hundreds of people were attracted to Songze Square in Qingpu District, where "Charming Qingpu," a performance designed to show residents' talents and skill in arts, was in full swing.
Starting in April, similar contests have already been successfully held in all the nine communities and towns around the district. More than 100 families have taken an active part in the events.
Each community or town selected one family as the representative to attend yesterday's finals. Nearly 100 performers, old and young, joined in the show.
Various interesting programs include Latin dance, Huju opera singing as well as traditional Chinese musical instrument performances.
Jiangsu native Zhao Xueqin came to Qingpu in 1993. Here she married Yu Jiangguang. Their son is already six years old now. The family shows great interests in attending such activities.
"As a new resident to Qingpu, I'm deeply convinced by its historical and cultural environment," Zhao said. "I'm willing to contribute my own efforts to develop it further."
Her husband said that at first they just wanted to send their son to play the piano at the contest, but at last all the three decided to participate in the competition.
This time, the family performed a short play.
"We have prepared it for a long time," he said. "We wrote the script by ourselves based on our daily lives."
"The contest gives us an ideal stage to display our talents and skills," said Xu Chunlin, a dulcimer player, whose family is frequent participants to various performances.
Almost all the Xu's family members are good at playing traditional Chinese musical instruments. For example, his father is a Chinese er'hu master while his son started to play the Chinese pipa at the age of nine.
Zhu Qi, an official from Qingpu District Government, said that the performance is very popular among the residents.
Many of them came from faraway places and enjoyed the show under the blazing sun for more than two hours.
"I came here right after I finished lunch," said Gu Aizhen.
The 67-year-old woman said that she came with a group of about 30 people from her neighborhood.
According to Chen Yaozu, a resident from Zhujiajiao Town, as a music lover, he is such a loyal fan that he has never missed any performances of this kind in the district.
Chen not only performs on the stage from time to time, but also instructs and shares with others his singing skills.
He mentioned that he has also made many new friends with the same interest through these activities.
"This is the first time that we have organized such a performance among all the Qingpu residents in recent years," said Zhu Qi. "More than 10,000 people have attended the contest this time.
"As an important part of Qingpu's urbanization procedure, every year, we host one or two large events like this so as to popularize culture activities among the public," she added.