The effort has paid off. Barbro Nordstrom has been attending CWICF as a member of the jury since 1989. She can't stop gushing about the Hebei acrobats who have been invited to perform in Sweden three times. It's lucky to be a gymnast in China now, she says.

"Ten different circus schools may be performing the same tricks but each in its own style and character," she says, adding that the Chinese always had top-class technique, now they have also learnt to package it well.

In fact, if Chinese performance directors have picked some of the sophisticated equipment and technological skills from other cultures, some of them are also leaving their own imprint on Western traditions.

An adorable satyr sporting a cute goatee scampers around in the aisles between set changes. He daintily kisses a lady's hand, and then does a double summersault in the air, landing precisely on the stilts, concealed under the hairy costume, towering four feet above the crowd, astonished and eager.

Christopher Keller, from San Francisco Circus Center, who picked up the concept and the skills of playing Pan from master teacher Lu Yi has taken his training as a gymnast to the next level by adding the "clowny bit".

"I am a huge fan of Greek mythology," he says, "especially Pan, the only god who dies. But there's no social message. This is just for fun."

Contrastingly, for Sean Rooney, the CWICF is not just about showcasing amazing human feats. Dressed in bulbous pajamas, and wearing a red cherry perched on his nose, Rooney might look like just another comedian. But the performer from Toronto, Canada, who created a giant figure of the lion Zhuang Zhuang, the cheerful CWICF mascot, came to the festival with a mission.

"In the future flags will be replaced by balloons as a marker of peace initiatives," says the creator of balloon installations, claiming that balloon art can help "loosen polarizations and dissolve divisions in a society" because of its positive association with childhood and innocence.

If you have been to the CWICF, maybe the next time you read about conflict resolution or climate change, you will think balloons.

The 12th Wuqiao International festival runs till Sunday at Shijiazhuang, moving to Cangzhou thereafter, where it will run till Nov 13.