A video that predates the 2025 Holi festival is falsely shared as Indians celebrating Holi in China
A video (here and here) showing coloured fireworks being launched in the middle of a street while people watch is being shared on social media. It is being claimed that these videos show ‘Indians celebrating Holi in China.’ Some users are sharing this video with a claim that it shows Hindus celebrating the Holi festival in China. We will fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: Video of Indians celebrating Holi in China.
Fact: This video is available on the internet since February 2025, predating the Holi festival celebrated on 14 March 2025. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To check the veracity of the viral claim, we performed a reverse image search on the internet using a few keyframes from the viral video. This search led to a few social media posts (here, here, and here) from February 2025, which contained the same video.
This year, Holi was celebrated on 14 March, which means the video was not shot during Holi 2025. Further, in some (here and here) of these posts from February 2025, it was mentioned that the video was filmed in China during celebrations of the sixteenth day of the first lunar month. One of these posts mentioned that this date follows the Chinese Lantern Festival; this year, it was celebrated on 12 February 2025.
During this search, we found an ‘X’ post under a now-deleted claim, in which the user uploaded a screenshot of a TikTok video containing visuals similar to the viral video. In the post description of that video, we can see a text that reads,‘#Chaoshan customs are safe and sound#Chaonshan Yinglaoye.’
Taking this as a hint, we performed another keyword search. We found a few YouTube videos and social media posts (here, here) that contained a video with the same visuals from a different angle to the viral video. These posts described the event seen in the video as the celebrations of the Lantern Festival/Spring Festival in China’s Chaoshan.
Chinese lantern festival is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month in China. According to an article published by the Hindustan Times, ‘The main objective of celebrating the Lantern Festival is to encourage forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation. This day marks the first full Moon of the new lunar year and the conclusion of the Chinese New Year.‘ However, we could not independently verify the exact location where the viral video was filmed. But, since it was available on the internet since February 2025, the viral claim is False.
To sum up, the viral video predates the 2025 Holi festival and is falsely shared as Indians celebrating Holi in China this year.