The Shoton (Xuedun) Festival is a traditional Tibetan festival held from the end of June of Tibetan calendar to the beginning of July. It is also called "Yoghurt Festival", for it means a festival to drink yoghurt in the Tibetan language. Originally, the Shoton Festival was a religious activity that common people rewarded shamans, who resumed meat diets after door-shut study, with yoghurt. The traditional Shoton Festival includes activities like Buddha show ceremony and Tibetan drama performance.
The first day of Shoton Festival is called "Yougurt (Zhebang) Shoton Festival", during which period, the main activity is to expose and view the figure of Buddha at the Yougurt Temple. At 8:00 A.M., accompanied with the grand trumpet call, a huge figure of Sakyamuni weaved in colored silk will be gradually unfolded, and tens of thousands of believers and tourists will worship it. The following days of Shoton Festival is called "Luobulinca Shoton Festival", during which period, the main activity is large-scale Tibetan drama performances hold at the Luobulinca Park from 11:00 A.M. to dusk. Tibetan dramas performed at the park include King Nuosa and Princess Wencheng. However, since time is limited, only classical parts of these dramas are performed. While watching Tibetan dramas, people will usually take out Qingke wine, ghee tea, and Tibetan style snacks. As they enjoy the Tibetan drama, they will shake the Scripture-rotated Tubes in their hands or twiddle Buddha beads. Besides the Tibetan drama performance, there are also some other performances like yak match and horsemanship performance.
The Shoton Festival is an important display form by which the Tibetan culture is inherited. It keeps the unique characteristics owned by the Tibetan culture, strengthens the comity between various ethnic groups, and safeguards the diversity of the world culture. Along with the development of history, the Shoton Festival has now been a grand meeting that combines the tradition and the modernism and that is integrated with functions as traditional Buddha show, show of arts, sports, tourism and leisure.
