Each year the Mountain Ramp Festival attracts thousands of visitors who range from the Miao people to tourists from China and beyond. The festival itself is steeped in Miao tradition and recreates the journey of the Miao from the eastern coast of China and resettlement in the west hundreds of years earlier. 
Just as the Miao once journeyed in pursuit of their livelihood, visitors from neighboring villages experience the similar trip uphill by foot and by automobile. The festival centers both symbolically and physically around a tree that is selected and ceremonially chopped down by local leaders who then carry it up the mountainside to its place at the center of the festival stage. Trees are revered within Miao culture, and they represent energy and life. Upon the conclusion of the festival the tree is taken to a remote location to ensure that nobody will find it and bring bad luck to the Miao.
