Over 10,000 yoga enthusiasts, in a country where yoga is rapidly gaining popularity, are expected to turn up at the event, conducted by the Indian consulate in collaboration with China’s southwest Sichuan provincial government.
June 21 will mark International Yoga Day, and the meet will run from June 17 to 21, according to K Nagaraju Naidu, Consul General of the Indian Consulate in Guangzhou. The event will also showcase other Indian traditional systems such as Ayurveda.
China was one of over 170 countries who voted for the UN resolution to celebrate an International Yoga Day, as proposed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his visit to the UN General Assembly in September last year.
Teachers from reputed organizations such as the K Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute, Isha Hatha Yoga School, Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, Kaivalyadhama, and Sivananda Yoga will be conducting the classes and workshops.
The four-day event will also be broadcast live on Sichuan TV and Chengdu TV, and over 10 television channels and 20 print media agencies are working with the Indian Consulate to promote the festival. The consulate had held a similar event in the city of Dali in 2014, which evoked an encouraging response, and organizers expect the turn out to be even better this year.
According to Naidu, China is the most rapidly expanding market for yoga, with almost every center sporting a yoga center. A large number of Chinese have also been travelling to India to learn yoga and be trained as yoga teachers. Several books by yoga gurus have also been translated into Chinese.
