The citizens of Zizhou County in Shaanxi Province is currently celebrating the annual Qingming Festival. In this festival, each household will make a special "mianhua" or flowery flour buns and honor their ancestors.
Each mianhua is designed in various colors and designed in different shapes. It has a very distinct flavor that infuses local flavors in North China. Making mianhuas are common in North China especially for special events and women often use various materials to design mianhuas shaped like animals or hands which symbolizes luck, harvest and prosperity. Usually, mianhuas are very sweet and served at dinner time.
Mianhua making is considered Zizhou County's Intangible Cultural Heritage since 2013 and it also helps the people pass down tradition to the younger generation. It is also said that mianhua making is a skill that all women should possess in the Shaanxi, Shanxi and Shandong provinces.
