A traveler with a suitcase in one hand and a phone in the other stops mid-stride near the east concourse, because a woman in a Tang-style robe has just walked past her toward a stage set up between the departure boards. Within a minute there are twenty phones raised. That was the opening afternoon of the 2026 Guangzhou Hanfu Culture Season, launched on September 26 at Guangzhou Baiyun Station, one of Asia’s largest transit-oriented development hubs, where the crowd on the concourse is not an audience that came for a show but passengers who happened to be catching trains.
Six Dynasties on One Runway
Organizers built the launch around a single runway titled “A Thousand Years of Dress, Water and Moon,” which walked the audience through Qin and Han gravity, Wei and Jin spirit, Sui and Tang splendor, Song elegance and Ming formality in sequence. Guangzhou Daily’s Huacheng edition noted that the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms blend was folded in as well, with each dynasty introduced by a spoken costume commentary rather than left to the clothes alone. The Hong Kong Hanfu Culture Association Guofeng Yaji was invited to take part, so Cantonese and Hong Kong enthusiasts shared the same stage.
“Meeting during the Mid-Autumn holiday, in this festival of reunion, Hanfu enthusiasts from Hong Kong and Guangzhou, two Greater Bay Area cities, gathering for one event is especially warm,” said Lu Simin, chairman of the Hong Kong group.
A Season That Runs Past the Holiday
What opened on Saturday is a quarter-long program rather than a weekend. Jiang Qimin, chairman of the Baiyun District Hanfu Culture Association, explained that the season links several venues and will bring a run of Hanfu events to residents through the autumn, covering dynasty runway shows, Guofeng parades, heritage interaction and craft workshops, with venue details published through the association’s Yunhan Hui account. The schedule spans both Mid-Autumn and National Day.
Once the launch ceremony ended, a dynasty formation left the main stage and worked through several points inside the station, stopping where passengers had gathered. “I did not expect to run into such a good Hanfu show at the station,” said Ms. Jin, a traveler who followed the parade taking photographs. “The wait for my train suddenly got interesting.”
Fourteen Hands-On Stations
Fourteen heritage and Guofeng stations ran alongside the runway. Ten-second portrait paper-cutting, sugar painting, custom calligraphy badges, dragon dance and a Mid-Autumn glass-bead bracelet workshop sat next to games that pulled in passers-by: a Cantonese luck game called “pig cage in water,” a flying-ball contest, a balance challenge, table fencing and a marble-board game.
The ceremony also included a dress-giving segment, in which the district’s Hanfu association presented robes to the Baiyun District Hub Management Office, Guangzhou Railway Station and the station’s youth volunteer service team. Baiyun district officials describe the arrangement as a four-way model, with government guidance, corporate support, a social organization executing and volunteers providing the backstop, and they point to it as something other hubs could copy. Hanfu groups from across the country also converged on the station along the rail network.
Who Staged the Show
Hosting came from the Baiyun District Hub Management Office and Guangzhou Railway Station under China Railway Guangzhou Group. Co-organizers were the Baiyun District Hanfu Culture Association, Guangzhou Comprehensive Transport Hub Development Co., the Baiyun Station Youth Volunteer Service Team and Guangzhou Xinshi Hospital, with support from Didi, Baiyunshan Kouyanqing, Guangtie Nuode (Guangzhou) Investment Development Co. and Guangdong Pharmaceutical University Guangzhou Fosun Chancheng Hospital.
Huacheng app reports that Baiyun Station handles more than 110,000 passengers a day, and that Baiyun District holds four transport hubs: Baiyun International Airport, Baiyun Station, Guangzhou International Port and Guangzhou Railway Station. The district has been pushing a culture, industry and consumption formula that puts local heritage into transit spaces, and this year’s calendar has already included 16 hub cultural events, on the reasoning that a station is a place people pass through rather than a place they visit.
