By CRI Reporters Wang Wei and Bao Congying

Temple fair is a traditional custom held during festivals. Right now the Dongcheng District Cultural Center is holding an indoor temple fair to celebrate this year's Spring Festival.

"We are now at the Dongcheng District Cultural Center, where an indoor temple fair is taking place. So let's go in and check it out."

There were various kinds of Beijing traditional art performances at this fair. Shulaibao, rhythmic storytelling, was one of them.

The storyteller Meng Xin introduced the Old Beijing, which told us the history and changes of the capital city, including the functions of different city gates.

Shadow play, shadow puppetry or as it's know in the US as "Chinese Theatre" is another ancient form of storytelling and entertainment using opaque, often articulated figures in front of an illuminated backdrop to create the illusion of moving images.

"Well, in this section like you can see, the artists here are showing me how to manipulate these puppets that's going to be part of the fun fair here in Beijing. People who are not going to travel around other cities, but will stay here over the festival period, can come here and learn how to, well, do the puppets."

It was interesting to watch the show, but not very easy to manipulate the puppets.

Lu Lianda has been working as a shadow puppeteer for over 50 years. He told our reporter,

"It will take at least half a year for one to learn how to manipulate it, and five to six years to be able to manipulate all kinds of puppets, including animals and human characters."

In another room, visitors could enjoy Chinese painting and calligraphy, two famous art forms which sometimes are shown together.

"This is a tiger, as you know very well, this year is the year of tiger. This picture has been made by using water paints. Right here we have Chinese calligraphy. If you want to learn all about the drawing, writing Chinese characters, this is the place to come. On the other side, we have people who can teach you how to do this."

Sun Shengnian, a calligrapher, was showing the visitors how to write the Chinese character "Tiger".

Chinese magic tricks, which were often performed on the street, were also shown at the temple fair. Li Zhongbao, chief magician of Beijing Jin Ling Yi Yun Culture and Art Center, taught our reporter how to do magic tricks.

Visitors had a great reaction to the fair.

Mr. Sun, one of the visitors, said he and his son enjoyed the toys and Peking opera when asked about their favorite items at the fair.

"Toys downstairs and others like Kong Zhu (Chinese Yo-yo), I and my son like them very much."

Tang Lijiang and Zhu Shiyi were two students majoring in art, who have been visiting Beijing for two weeks.

"This place has so many traditional Chinese arts, so we like it very much."

Besides these activities, visitors could also have a chance to make Chinese knots, guess Chinese riddles and write spring festival couplets at the cultural center.