From August 21 to 27, the 2017 Shoton Festival will be held with various activities including an opening ceremony, unveiling of giant Buddha thangka scrolls, Tibetan opera performances, photography exhibitions, traditional ethnic equestrian performances, an event  to promote investment projects and signing ceremony, and the 11th Lhasa to Namtso Trekking Event.

The Shoton Festival, also named Yoghurt Festival, is one of the oldest traditional festivals in Lhasa. During the festival, unveiling of giant thangka scrolls, Tibetan opera performances, and horse races are among the most popular events.

This year, the essay contest with theme of "Impressions of Shoton" has already begun, with a first place prize of 3,000 yuan (446 US dollars).

For the contest, essays must focus on "Impressions of Shoton Festival", but the writing style and word content have no limit. Participants should send essays to the email address lsxdb@sina.cn between July 20 and August 27. There will be first, second and third prizes as well as 10 honorable mentions. A group of experts and scholars will select the winning essays (high-quality essays will be published on the official "hoton Festival" WeChat account).

All essays should be original works. Anyone who is found to infringe others' copyrights should bear consequences himself or herself.