On the 16th day of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar, 40-year-old Yire got up very early. She quickly and quietly crept to the room where the children were still sleeping on the kang (traditional bed) and smeared black ash she had scraped from the bottom of the pot on their faces and wished them a safe and healthy year. The children and grandchildren later also smeared the ashes on their elders’ faces. During this “smearing festival” the person with the most ash on their face is believed to be the luckiest. The festival is considered a city-level intangible cultural heritage, among the Daur people, one of the many Chinese ethic minority groups.