"After the ordeal come our harvest and gratitude. Happy Qiang New Year!" Chen Zhi, a young man of Qiang ethnic group in southwest China's Sichuan Province, sent this best-wishes text message to his relatives and friends on Wednesday, the first day of the Qiang lunar New Year.

October 1 in the Chinese lunar calendar is Qiang Nationality's New Year's Day, which falls on Wednesday, October 29 this year.

In Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, home of most of the Qiang people in China and also the worst stricken area in the devastating May 12 earthquake, the residents celebrated their traditional festival with mixed feelings.

"On this occasion, we extend our gratitude, we pray for the dead, we hope for good fortune and we will rebuild our homes," Chen Zhi, a governmental agency employee in Aba, said.

"It's the most exciting day since the quake," Ma Qianguo, party secretary of Luobuzhai Village in Wenchuan County, said on Wednesday.

The village, famous for Qiang people's unique stone castles and watchtowers, used to be a tourist attraction before the tremor. But the unique buildings were mostly destroyed in the disaster.

For the first time after the quake, all the 965 villagers, old or young, men or women, put on their most beautiful traditional outfits for this great occasion. Led by their head, the villagers held a memorial ceremony.

"This year, we not only pray for next year's harvest, we also pray for peacefulness for the victims and good fortune for the survivors," Ma said.

After the ceremony, the villagers also invited the construction technicians from southern Guangdong Province to their celebration party on the village's new site.

The villagers now live in prefab houses. But in the near future, anti-seismic houses with unique Qiang features will be available.

The New Year festivity also penetrated Lixian County with a singing competition. The performers, all local villagers, had prepared and rehearsed their performance in the intervals between reconstruction work.

This competition was also an effort to preserve the nationality's folk songs and drum dancing after the earthquake destroyed people's homes, said the organizers.

But not all residents in the Qiang area were in the mood for celebration.

"I have little time to observe the occasion," said Chen Mingjun, a villager in Longxi Village of Wenchuan.

"The snow season is near. I have to finish building the house before snow."

The village is on the frigid plateau area with an altitude of 2,200 meters. Half the 95 households have built new houses and the others are going to start construction soon.

The Qiang people, also called "the people living in clouds" for their high-altitude residence on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, has a history of at least 3,000 years.

They are famous for their unique language, customs, arts and religious beliefs and also known for the stone castles they live in, often three or four stories tall.

It has a population of 300,000 people, 80 percent of whom are in the quake-hit areas of Maoxian, Wenchuan, and Beichuan counties in Sichuan.

More than 30,000 Qiang people died in the quake, 40 of whom were cultural masters and experts.

The Sichuan provincial government plans to invest 9.4 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) to protect the threatened Qiang culture in Aba prefecture.

(Xinhua News Agency October 30, 2008)