Over the past month, I have attended three large festivals in China: The GRAMMY Festival, Strawberry Festival and Creamfields. Being a huge festivalgoer in the US, I was excited, but I didn't know what to expect because it seems as if events in China are usually centered on an expat crowd or geared toward the Chinese.

However, I was blown away when attending the festivals because I saw the most wonderful mix of expats and Chinese at the events. It was truly an overwhelming experience. Even the security guards had huge smiles on their faces and joined in, dancing and singing with the crowd. I believe there is one thing that really brought us together - the music.

At one festival, the famous Chinese rocker Dou Wei drew one of the largest crowds. There was not an empty spot inside the venue during his performance. He has been famous since the 90s, so the crowd was mixed with older and younger Chinese fans as well as expats from all over.

Looking around at the field full of people letting go and escaping the daily grind to spend a day in the outskirts of Beijing listening to music, I felt something familiar. Music is how I deal with stress and take a break from the day-to-day routine. Seeing that here showed me that while people can be so different, we can also be similar because music is something that is universal. Even when my friends and I listened to the Chinese artists and didn't understand the words, there was still an energy that everyone shared.

I am really happy to see that Beijing is loosening some of its restrictions and allowing more festivals to come in. Creamfields is a festival that is extremely popular in the UK, and now it is making its first tour across China. It was also the first year for the GRAMMY Festival, which brought top US artists to China.

The festivals bring the community together in even more ways. The upcoming YinYang Music Festival is using part of the proceeds from each ticket to plant a forest in Tianjin and build a park there geared toward youth in China. They also allow all the locals in the town where the festival is held to join the event for free and even vend there for free. Through events like this, music can bring people from around the world together and help them create meaningful bonds.

This article was published on the Global Times Metropolitan section Two Cents page, a space for reader submissions, including opinion, humor and satire. The ideas expressed are those of the author alone, and do not represent the position of the Global Times.