Tens of thousands of Tibetans and domestic and overseas visitors gathered at the square in front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa Thursday to celebrate the beginning of the annual Xodoin Festival.

Xodoin means "yogurt banquet" in Tibetan and the festival, which is also called the Tibetan Opera Festival, is held each yearon the first day of the seventh month of the Tibetan calendar, andusually lasts seven days. It has been celebrated in Tibet for morethan 300 years.

This year's Xodoin Festival in Lhasa, the regional capital, will run for a week. In other places in Tibet it is expected to run for about two weeks.

According to tradition, a huge silk embroidered cloth picture of Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, has been displayed on the gentle slope in front of the Drepung Lamasery, three kilometers northwest of Lhasa.

Festival activities including a performance gala, Tibetan opera,folk songs and dance, horsemanship, concerts, a fashion show and an exhibition of native products of Tibet will be staged during the festival.