The Mud Washing Festival, also known as the Bitter Melon Festival, is an agricultural celebration held on the 13th day of the fifth lunar month after the busy spring planting. It is one of the folk cultural activities of the Pingdi Yao people. The main activities are held in the ancient village of Gou Lan Yao in the southern border of Hunan. It is said that the Mud Washing Festival originated in the Tang Dynasty and spread to more than 100 Pingdi Yao villages at the junction of Hunan, Guangxi and Guangdong. According to research: The Gou Lan Yao Mud Washing Festival began after "they were recruited to guard the Xiangyue Pass, the gateway to the county, in the ninth year of Hongwu". They not only followed the customs of the Mud Washing Festival, but also integrated the content of the festival activities of the local tribes into it, and developed it into a grand festival of worship, leisure, carnival, marriage and friendship, which has been passed down for a long time. The Mud Washing Festival includes the excellent traditional cultural contents of Gou Lan Yao, such as architecture, diet, marriage, production, life, festivals, etc. It carries many important historical and cultural information and original memories of Gou Lan Yao people. It shows the spiritual world of Gou Lan Yao people in a subtle and entertaining way, and expresses the pursuit and yearning of Gou Lan Yao people for beautiful ideals, wisdom and ethics. The content and form it expresses have outstanding research value for disciplines such as ethnology, folklore, anthropology, music aesthetics and history. It is an important carrier for carrying forward the excellent traditional culture of the Yao people and inheriting the traditional virtues of China. It is also a bridge and bond for promoting national unity and building a peaceful and harmonious society. With the changes of the times and the impact of strong culture, the Mud Washing Festival activities that have been popular for thousands of years and spread in Hunan, Guangxi and Guangdong are gradually disappearing. At present, only Gou Lan Yao Village has a relatively complete inheritance. However, with the passage of time, the existing representative inheritors are over 70 years old, the changes in the life and ideas of young people, and the serious lack of capital investment, this ancient Yao folk festival is also facing the fate of natural extinction. The only representative inheritors left are 68-year-old Ouyang Xuzhen and two others. The Jiangyong County Party Committee and County Government have included the Mud Washing Festival in the five-year protection plan, and in September 2008, it was successfully applied for the "Yongzhou Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection List".