A scene from the CCTV Mid-Autumn Festival gala in Qinglian town, Jiangyou, Southwest China's Sichuan province on Sunday. [Photo/Huang Zhiling]

Performers chanted lines from Li Bai's poems about the moon and presented Sichuan elements such as the giant panda, fire-spitting and facial mask changing during CCTV's Mid-Autumn Festival coverage in Qinglian town in Jiangyou on Sunday.

During a dance, viewers also saw a cuddly panda played by a performer welcoming a guest with a cup of tea.

Qinglian was the birthplace of Li (701-762AD), the greatest romantic poet in Chinese literary history, who lived there for 24 years. Li wrote many masterpieces about the moon and some have become set reading for Chinese students through the generations.

Annual CCTV Mid-Autumn Festival coverage is broadcast live to the Chinese in more than 90 countries and regions with audiences totaling 400 million.