Changchun holds various festivals throughout the year. As a national center of the film-making industry, a Film Festival takes place every two years in August, which is said by the locals to be comparable to those in Cannes and Berlin , though sadly this is far from the truth. For those with a liking for wine, the Port Wine Festival in August-September is not to be missed.
If you are more sport oriented, the Mongolian Festival in Baicheng, a small town 400 km from the city, offers you everything from horse riding and archery to wrestling. Winter is the prime time for festivals--like its northern neighbor, Harbin , Changchun also boasts a large-scale Ice lantern Festival . For ice sports, you should head to the various ski resorts around the city.
Changchun is the birthplace of errenzhuan, a mix of stand-up comedy and opera that is thoroughly vulgar and, for those who can understand Mandarin, very entertaining. Real fans head to the raucous, smoke-filled Heping Daxiyuan, a block north of the post office on Renmin Dajie (tel. 0431/893-4304), where tawdry performances get audiences roaring with laughter and keep them that way most of the night. Nightly shows at 7:40pm cost 10 to 50 ($1.30-$6.50/65p-3.25). The Longli Lu, near Guilin Lu and Remin Jie, is the "Bar Area," with a number of local bars to choose. Two popular disco clubs, Mayflower (Wuyuehua Jiuba; tel. 0431/893-322), tucked underground on the south side of the Wenhua Huodong Zhongxin on Renmin Dajie, and SOS Storm (Qian Ren SOS Storm; tel. 0431/8564-6060) on Fujin Lu 9, which organized the first international music festival in Changchun in late 2006, are popular with foreigners and stay open late.
