Villagers surround a rice cake reaching a height of 1.3 meters during a folk cultural festival held in Tong'an district, Xiamen, southeast China’s Fujian province, on Feb 8. [Photo by He Dongfang for China Daily]

Local residents made two rice cakes - each reaching a height of 1.3-meters and weighing a combined total of more than 750 kilograms – as part of celebrations marking a folk cultural festival in Fenggang village, Tong'an district, Xiamen, in southeast China's Fujian province, on Feb 8.

Hong Qingqiu, secretary general of the village's senior citizens association, said that 36 people had made the rice cakes, which required steaming for 12 hours.

The tradition of offering rice cakes as part of prayers for a plentiful harvest started in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and continued until 1951, and only resumed in 2011 when some elderly villagers started making the rice cakes again.

The villagers have continued the tradition every year since then and, in 2013, the city's municipal government included the rice cakes as a craft of Xiamen's intangible cultural heritage.

Rice cakes, also called sticky cakes, are made of sticky rice in the south of China and sticky millet in the north.

By Lu Ting, China Daily Fujian Bureau, and Zhao Qian

Edited by Niva Whyman