China takes a bow in Edinburgh, the festival city

Theatrical groups and dancers from around the world head for Scotland's giant annual cultural extravaganza

The Scottish capital of Edinburgh is a sedate city most of the time. Its business is finance and politics, and its civic character is personified by Muriel Spark's Miss Jean Brodie, although the likes of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting characters, Renton and Begbie, are never too far away.

Most visitors spend their time among the geometric streets of the 18th century New Town and the renovated medieval warrens of the Old Town that inspired Spark and Alexander McCall Smith, rather than 1970s-built housing schemes of the suburbs that inspired the Trainspotting book and film.

But in the month of August, stereotypes of the city are overturned and it is transformed into the focus of the international arts community and a platform for artists and performers from all over the world.

This year, China is better represented than ever at the Edinburgh Festival, an umbrella for a series of different events that take place in August.

The country's Ministry of Culture along with other Chinese cultural partners, is hosting China Focus, which includes performances of Luocha Land by the National Theater of China and performances by seven other major Chinese theatrical and dance groups.

The China-Scotland Chamber of Commerce is hosting a Chinese Arts and Culture Festival, in which the Guangdong Modern Dance Company and other groups will perform modern dance and classic Peking operas.

There is probably no better place to showcase Chinese art - nor an audience more willing to embrace new things - than in Edinburgh.

The Edinburgh Festival was started in 1947 "to provide for the flowering of human spirit", which had been sorely battered by World War II. It has now become several festivals, including the International Festival, which features "high" art such as ballet, drama and music; the Fringe, which features drama, cabaret, dance, comedy, and the Military Tattoo, an evening of military shows that has regularly hosted the People's Liberation Army.

The Fringe has moved from being a peripheral part of the Edinburgh Festival to becoming the largest arts festival in the world. In 2015, 2.29 million tickets were sold, and in 2016, there were 3,269 shows in 294 venues.

It can be exhausting. It is impossible to move very far without actors thrusting flyers advertising their shows in a dramatic fashion. A walk down the Royal Mile, which links Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace, the Queen's Edinburgh residence, is like an obstacle course of canvassers, props and street artists, which can be very entertaining for a tourist but less so for a resident on the way to work.

For the committed, there are performances from morning to night.

The ones that get good reviews sell out quickly, but there are always more shows and more activities. At the end of the evening, bars and clubs are open into the morning.

Performers try to outdo each other in trying to be avant-garde and controversial, such as an Eastern European group that performed Shakespeare in a swimming pool.

I remember falling asleep during a performance by the Bolshoi Opera, exhausted from a punishing schedule of work, entertainment and socializing.

Many of the best spectacles are free, such as the street theater throughout the city and the massive fireworks display that is set off from the ramparts and slopes of the castle.

China is one of 62 countries represented at the festival, but Edinburgh is the only place where you can see Peking and Canonese opera sitting easily beside their Italian, German and English counterparts, as well as thousands of other shows and activities.

The author is a reporter with China Daily's London office. Contact the writer at conal@mail.chinadailyuk.com

(China Daily European Weekly 07/28/2017 page11)