Today, people across China are celebrating the Laba Festival. It is a traditional Chinese festival which falls on the eighth day of the 12th lunar month.

The festival was originally a day of thanks for a good harvest and sacrifice to ancestors.

On this day, people usually eat Laba porridge, a porridge with eight kinds of mixed grains and corn. Still, there are other ways to celebrate the festival.

In some places of north China, people eat Laba noodles instead of laba porridge. In most places of northwest China, there is a tradition to prepare Laba garlic, a kind of vinegar-soaked garlic. In Qianxian, east China’s Anhui Province, people make Laba toufu in preparation for the festival.

Volunteers and senior citizens eat Laba porridge together at Heping District in Tianjin, north China, Jan. 22, 2018. The Laba Festival, a traditional Chinese festival on the eighth day of the 12th lunar month, falls on Jan. 24 this year. It's customary on this day to eat a special Laba porridge, usually made with at least eight ingredients, representing people's prayers for harvest. (Xinhua/Shen Hua)