The drone hovered above the Yang Clan Ancestral Hall in Chaqiao Village, and everything in the picture was red.
The courtyard of the ancestral hall is covered with a red canopy, and the red carpet spreads eastward from the Yang ancestral hall, passing through the open space in front of the Xianqiao School and extending to the entrance of the village. The men uniformly wore red polo shirts and shuttled back and forth under the red inflatable rainbow door. Young people beat gongs and drums, and four people lined up in two teams and carried a plaque engraved with the words "Good Neighborliness and Friendship."
A Toyota Coaster stopped in front of the Rainbow Gate, and 16 elderly people surnamed Huang from Gaomei Village, dressed in dark red Tang suits, got out of the car and headed for the Yang Clan Ancestral Hall, 200 meters away. The route of travel was confirmed a few days ago, and it should be in line with the feng shui of "green dragon on the left and white tiger on the right".
In places where drones can't photograph, the police and traffic police in the area patrol the perimeter. This day is October 1, 2023, National Day. The date was carefully chosen, and two Chaoshan villages, with a combined population of more than 30,000 people – Chaqiao Village and Gaomei Village in Rongcheng District, Jieyang City, Guangdong Province, were to settle the feud between their ancestors 200 years ago and to intermarry from now on.
At the same time, 16 elderly people surnamed Yang from Chaqiao Village, wearing the same dark red Tang costumes, were also walking towards the ancestral hall surnamed Huang in Gaomei Village. "Reciprocity" is a rule that both parties must strictly follow. A few days ago, a village tried to transport tourists in a million-dollar luxury car, which was banned, so everyone replaced the vehicle with a Toyota Coaster.
Every detail of the ceremony has been carefully considered, whether it is the length of the ceremony, the costumes of the elderly, the size of the rainbow door, the value of the souvenirs, or the number of people who come and go. For them, it's a big deal.
Form a feud
Yang Yanchuan is the secretary of the Party Committee and the director of the village committee of Chaqiao Village, coordinating the seven natural villages of Chaqiao, 120,000 villagers in public affairs (of which there are 110,000 people have the surname Yang). There are many and trivial things in the big clan, and there is an endless stream of villagers who come to Yang Yan's house to discuss with him, and three or four different topics gather at the tea table of his house at the same time, waiting for him to speak.
He's been in the business too. Basket Dou Village is close to Chaqiao and has the busiest street in the urban-rural junction of Jieyang. Locals boast that it was once China's largest scrap metal processing settlement, and today it is still densely packed with shops for mechanical and electrical products for small processing plants. Yang Yan's shop is crowded in it, ** electric welding machine produced in Shanghai. As a village cadre, he couldn't spare more energy, and the business was handed over to his wife to take care of.
At the age of 53, Yang Yanchu, who has gone half his life, can still clearly remember the afternoon when his father issued a serious warning to him. The man, who often frowned and had round eyes for the sake of village affairs, had a rare confusion on his face.
After school, the children played together, and the children surnamed Huang from the neighboring village Gaomei were also among them. The father suddenly approached: "You can play with them, but you don't want marriage." Yang Yan, who is still in elementary school, is ignorant, but she can sense the fear entrained in the taboo. When he grew up, he met many girls surnamed Huang in Gaomei Village, and never had the idea of falling in love.
When Yang Yan's generation becomes a father, disobedience and rebellion are still unimaginable. Everyone can tell a few stories of "beating mandarin ducks", Yang Yan remembered that the older unmarried brother rarely liked a girl, the matchmaker went to make peace, and the girl replied: "I am Gao Mei's surname Huang, I'm afraid marriage will not work." ”
Everyone can also name a few examples of "so-and-so insisted on marrying to Gao Mei, and the marriage did not end up being good". No one blames it on the social exclusion that accompanies the "feud", they prefer to believe that the "unhealthy death" is precisely the fulfillment of the poisonous oath and curse of the ancestors.
Believing and obedient, few people will ask "why". Yang Yanchuan has encountered an exception. A few years ago, her daughter, who was in her second year of high school, suddenly brought a boy from Gaomei Village home, and after the boy left, Yang Yanchuan told her daughter: "You can make friends, but you can't talk about marriage." "What emotions did my daughter have at that time?Yang Yan's memory was blank.
Sad, of course sad. But there is no way, there are very few intermarriages with those there, and there is no good result in marrying. His wife, Zheng Yonghua, sat next to her husband, her face wrinkled.
That boy is good. Yang Yan didn't feel that she had done anything wrong, but her tone was full of regret. "Then he came to me two or three more times, and he sat for a long time, and kept asking, 'Uncle, why?'Why?Why?”
Yang Yan also has no standard answer. Yang Jibo, the previous party secretary of Chaqiao Village, had searched the genealogies and other historical materials of the two parties, but could not find any record of how the feud came to be. But there is a vague consensus that "back then, it was just about fighting for a little land, or an irrigation water source."
On October 1, 2023, a reconciliation ceremony was held in Chaqiao Village and Gaomei Village, Rongcheng District, Jieyang City, Guangdong. Figure Jieyang**.
In their perception, feuds are a common phenomenon among neighboring villages in Chaoshan. Ou Junyong, a native of Jieyang, is an associate professor at the School of History and Culture at Hanshan Normal University, and he has long been investigating and researching the workings of clan society in his hometown. He found that it was usually a single-surname village with one surname in one village that formed feuds.
Ou Junyong told China News Weekly that hundreds of years ago, clan builders in the Chaoshan region gradually chose the one-village-one-surname model in order to avoid conflicts within the settlements and facilitate self-management. However, the rapid population growth during the Qianlong and Jiaqing periods of the Qing Dynasty brought new problems to the one-village-one-surname model. "The most critical goal of the clan is to reproduce. Land is limited, and as the population continues to grow and people come into contact with each other, the borders between villages become strained. ”
Ou Junyong found that there are four patterns of conflict in single-surname villages: resource competition, family disputes, the suppression of small surnames by large surnames, and involvement in major historical events. However, the root cause is the contradiction between man and land.
The environment has changed, and it may be difficult for people today to understand what was going on. The essence of the contradiction between the villages in those years was the struggle for the means of production. If you cut off the water source for irrigation, I will have less available here, and it will affect my rice yield. When I was young, the villagers had to divide the area for drying rice, and if you occupied my site, there would be conflicts. Yang Guibin, deputy secretary of the Party Working Committee of Xianqiao Street and leader of the Rongcheng District Assistance Team in Xianqiao Street, told China News Weekly.
The reason for this was that the court and government were corrupt at that time, the officials and teachers were weak to control the rural society, the villages lacked the persuasion and training of orthodox culture, and when there were grievances between the people of the clans, they could not be resolved in a timely and fair manner. According to the "History of Chaoshan". During the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, similar situations occurred in the entire Chaoshan region. Yang Jibo understands it this way.
Resources are limited, the population is large, the clan has to fight for control of the periphery, and the most intense conflict has occurred between clans with different surnames using artillery and other ** fights. Ou Junyong said that in order to avoid the trouble of supporting orphans and widows caused by the clansmen, some villages will hire "prodigal boys" who are not cared about by their parents from outside. "Wanderer"** lost money to his parents.
And the feud between the two villages is not completely separated, restricting the marriage that is only imposed on the offspring, "without marriage, it cuts off the possibility of close relations between the two families." When the two sides fight, there is a lot less trouble and worry. Ou Junyong told China News Weekly.
The reconciliation was frustrated
More than 200 years later, farmland has become a dense network of steel, plastic, footwear and clothing processing factories, and middle-aged men rely on factories to make a fortune and feed their families. In Chaqiao Village and Gaomei Village, there are not many people who still rely on farming to survive, and the competition for resources that made the ancestors make a poisonous oath in the ancestral hall is no longer important. In fact, because it was split into two administrative villages, Meixi and Meidong, even Gaomei Village has long ceased to exist.
More and more feuding villages are reconciled. Beishan Village and Guolong Village in Puning City, Chidu Village and Shanmei Village in Jiedong District, Jiamei Community and Xiqi Village in Shantou Ou Junyong has a long list of feud village reconciliations in his head.
But according to Ou Junyong's observations, the emotional needs of young people have never been the main reason for the reconciliation of the feud village. After the reform and opening up, with the help of geographical advantages, many villages in eastern Guangdong have developed their own light industries and no longer rely on mountain and forest land. The village sages who have become rich deeply realize that exchanges and cooperation can bring immeasurable resources and wealth.
What was thought to be a fundamental contradiction in the past no longer exists, and with urbanization, the boundaries between villages are becoming more and more blurred, and neighboring villages can complement each other's strengths. Everyone will get rich together, and the ancestral precepts that have been adhered to from generation to generation will naturally be abolished, and reconciliation is the inevitable development of history. Ou Junyong told China News Weekly.
Exterior view of the Yang Clan Ancestral Hall in Chaqiao Village. Photographer Wang Yu.
In Chaqiao, Yang Jibo was the first to publicly propose reconciliation. In September 2014, Yang Jibo was invited to participate in the "Good Neighborliness and Friendship" celebration of Yang, Lin and Hou participated by the Yang clan in Jiexi County. Clans that had feuded with each other paid homage to their ancestors and presented each other with "Good Neighborliness and Friendship" plaques.
Yang Jibo was inspired, and at that time he had just been transferred to the post of party secretary and director of the village committee of Chaqiao Village for half a year. Chaqiao has a large population and seven natural villages are not evenly matched, and this former head of the Xianqiao Street Cultural Station is worried about how to manage the village. "There is no harm in such a thing. Yang Jibo confidently found a shortcut to win people's hearts.
He found Yang Donghe, chairman of the Yang Clan Ancestral Hall Council, and as soon as his words began, he was opposed by the other party. Yang Donghe felt that this was a matter of Chaqiao and Gaomei, and it was clear that there were more and more urgent problems within Chaqiao Village, and what he wanted to solve most was the problem of interference with the route of the ancestor worship team in the village.
It has been 40 generations since reproduction, and the most proud of the Yang clan is the ancestor Yang Hua. In the ancestral hall of the Yang family, the tablet and portrait of this court member who was affectionately called "Elemental Brother" by Su Shi are enshrined.
Every year, three days before the winter solstice, in the morning, the clansmen start the annual ancestor worship event in the Yang ancestral hall. Yang Donghe told China News Weekly that in addition to the people who stayed in Chaqiao, there are millions of Yang people scattered in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and other parts of Chaoshan, and they rely on the Yang ancestral hall to confirm their origin and belonging. Therefore, ancestor worship is not only a grand event for the Yang clan in Chaqiao, but also a grand event for all the people surnamed Yang who recognize their ancestors and return to their ancestors.
For a traditional village, the most important thing is to worship ancestors and gods. Ou Junyong said that in traditional societies with low literacy rates, experience is a valuable resource. Only the elders who have personally participated in the ritual will have a grasp of the history of the clan and the rituals of the sacrifice. In the Chaoshan area, groups of elderly people like Yang Donghe, who have prestige in the village and are in charge of ancestral ancestral worship, are called "old people's heads".
In the village, the right to speak is in the hands of the senior. Prestigious, educated, fair and decent elders often play the role of decision-makers in the public affairs of the clan. Ou Junyong found that if the cadres of the two committees, the traditional elderly group and the village sage group cooperate well, a village can develop quickly, but if there are disputes between them, there will be some problems in the development of the village.
The problem that Yang Donghe wants to solve, the protagonists are the two natural villages in Chaqiao Village, Dongguang and Doumen, there are many contradictions within the two villages, and they have stumbled so far, the villagers of Doumen do not allow the ancestral procession to pass through Doumen, and the villagers of Dongguang counteract by not allowing the funeral team of the old man of Doumen to pass through Dongguang.
The contradiction also extends to the ancestral council. Yang Donghe is from Dongguang, and an "old man" from Doumen has a dispute with him, and the two parties do not give in to each other and do not interact with each other. The other party refused to attend the meeting of the ancestral hall council for a long time. Yang Donghe hopes that someone will come forward to resolve this situation.
Therefore, when Yang Jibo proposed to reconcile with Gaomei Village, Yang Donghe asked rhetorically: "If you can't do things well at home, how can you do things outside?"But in Yang Jibo's view, feud reconciliation is in the name of the entire village and clan, breaking the oath of the ancestors to reconcile, and it is necessary to get the support of the "old man's head". The matter was put on hold.
Let's talk about reconciliation again
Nine years later, it was Yang Guibin, deputy secretary of the Xianqiao Street Party Working Committee, who once again put feud reconciliation on the agenda.
Yang Guibin is also a native of Chaqiao, two years ago, he was transferred from Rongcheng District to Xianqiao Street, and his other identity is the leader of the Xianqiao Street Assistance Team, responsible for rural revitalization. In July this year, the third inspection team of the Jieyang Municipal Party Committee and the Rongcheng District Party Committee inspected Xianqiao and proposed to "do practical things for the people". When the leading group of Xianqiao Street held a meeting, Yang Guibin picked among many matters to promote reconciliation between the two villages.
In the past, we have heard more or less about our visits to the grassroots level, and we have also communicated with the neighborhood leadership team, so when I put it forward again, I also got the support of the main leaders of the neighborhood. Yang Guibin told China News Weekly. "Some party members and cadres will think that this is the people's own business, but I don't think so. Grassroots governance involves all aspects of daily life, and if the village can have a harmonious atmosphere, it can promote our grassroots governance to continue to do some practical things. The soft environment is a very important support. "Yang Guibin has his own judgment.
In the ancestral hall of the Yang family, there is a plaque of "good neighborliness and friendship" presented by Gaomei Village. Photographer Wang Yu.
Yang Guibin heard that there was an attempt in 2014, so he set out to understand that the old people in the Chaoshan area were very affected by the clan concept, especially the ancestral training, and they did not dare to break the spell easily. In addition, there are some small contradictions within Omura. There are also some cadres who will think that this is the business of the old man and the clan."
Knowing about Yang Donghe, he asked Yang Jibo to recommend a "person who is close to the old man and ideologically in line with us", Yang Jibo recommended Yang Donghe's nephew Yang Shaoyu, who is the captain of the local blue sky rescue team and a representative of the Jieyang Municipal People's Congress.
This is certainly a good thing. As the captain of the Blue Sky Rescue Team, Yang Shaoyu has to coordinate 600 team members with different backgrounds and personalities, and knows the value of cooperation and the internal friction caused by contradictions. "This time it is ** who will take the lead in helping us to reconcile, and we cannot miss this opportunity. Yang Shaoyu had a clear goal, and he thought of a whole set of reasons before meeting his uncle, and he even told Yang Donghe, "If you get stuck in this link this time, future generations of children and grandchildren will say that you are a sinner." ”
After the first communication, Yang Donghe compromised. After consulting with other "old heads" of the council, Yang Donghe put forward a new proposal: It is difficult to bear the heavy task of reconciliation by relying on the strength of the elderly alone, and the cadres of the "two committees" should participate in it and share the responsibility. In addition, for other old people who hold opposing opinions, they should rely on the authority of the party and government to convince them.
Yang Guibin also found that the good things that other villages would spontaneously promote were difficult in Chaqiao. "When he had a meeting, he said yes, and you said yes, but no one did it. Although the neighborhood held many internal meetings to coordinate and organize the cadres of the "two committees" of each village to communicate, more than a month has passed, and the cadres are still just waiting and watching. "The village cadres have learned a lot of failures and encountered difficulties in their work, and they will see our determination, so at such a critical moment, we have to give them a boost. Yang Guibin told China News Weekly.
The sub-district decided to set up a coordination group, with the secretary of the sub-district party working committee as the leader, and the town mayor and deputy secretary of the party working committee as the deputy leader. This is not enough, and similar special working groups have been set up in various villages, mainly composed of cadres of the "two committees", and local village sages and influential people must also participate. "With a practical grasp of the work and a series of overall operations, the atmosphere is slowly formed. Yang Guibin said.
Reconciliation has become a matter for the party and government, and we seem to have a token to do things better. Yang Qingliang, a cadre of the "two committees" of Yuyuan Village, told China News Weekly.
For the ritual of reconciliation, the street has set four principles: the atmosphere is strong so that the villagers can be infected and the change of "good neighborliness" can be deeply rooted in the hearts of the people;Don't invite guests, don't make big shows, keep the ceremony simple, and avoid waste;Emphasis on equality and taking care of small villages;Self-funded, open and transparent.
Waste must be avoided, but there must be ceremonies and ceremonies, because for the elderly, rituals are necessary. The emphasis on equality stems from the fact that we do not want to have problems that are thinner than an arm in the process, causing new contradictions. When the two sides exchange visits, the larger and wealthier villages should accommodate the smaller villages in terms of the number of people and the value of the gifts. Yang Guibin told reporters.
The next step is to communicate with Chaqiao and Gaomei to promote each other, and balance is always the core grasp. The "auspicious day" of each natural village and ancestral hall is different, and the day on which to hold the "Good Neighborliness and Friendship" celebration is chosen. In the end, everyone agreed: "The country is the biggest, and the National Day is the big festival, and the celebration should be fun with the country." ”
There are small natural villages within the administrative villages, and there is also a need for balance between villages. For example, on the side of Gaomei, the ancestral hall has fallen into disrepair, and the location of the ceremony has become a problemFour natural villages, but worship three ancestors at the same time, and the old people are arguing about which ancestor to witness and reconcile. It has been suggested that all three ancestors should take turns to receive worship. In the end, they chose Jiangxia Gong, who was of higher seniority, and for this reason, they also specially went to Chaoyang City next door to invite their ancestors.
In late September, the celebration has become the most important thing to be handled within the two villages, with the two villages visiting each other in advance, rehearsing, calibrating all the details, and checking and filling in the gaps. "For this play, the script was written by our street coordination team, the stage was set up by us, the director was also done by us, and the roles had to be played by the elderly. Yang Jibo summed up to China News Weekly.
Troubles and answers
After the celebration, some positive feedback came, "Our judgment is not wrong, and after the 'good neighborliness and friendship', the sewage problem between Gaomei and Chaqiao has been successfully solved." Yang Guibin said.
But for the party secretaries of the two villages, the reconciliation of the feud villages is far from solving the difficulties they are facing. Huang Chaoming, 58, has been a cadre of the village committee since 1999 and has been the party secretary of Meixi Village for 15 years. Facing reporters, he was very calm, "'Good neighborliness and friendship' solves the contradictions at the level of traditional customs, not social contradictions. ”
Chaqiao's economy lags behind the surrounding villages, which has become the consensus of the villagers. Across the Rongchi Road from Chaqiao, Basketdou Village is a symbol of the local economy, and both sides of the road attract nimble minds like Yang Yanchuan from the surrounding villages to set up shop here. Along the streets and alleys next to the stores, villagers have built shoe factories, rolling mills and other processing enterprises with the help of their homesteads. In Chaqiao, there are only sporadic footwear and clothing and plastic processing enterprises.
Chaqiao has no income overall. In the past, people were not in harmony and missed the last opportunity for land development. Yang Yan filled with regret.
He envied one of the two villages that Gao Mei later divided, Meixi Village. Meixi Village was developed soon after the reform and opening up, and in the era when basic farmland management was not standardized, many collectively-owned land was converted into industrial land, supporting the development of small local steel rolling mills and shoe factories. This is the "development opportunity" missed by Chaqiao, and it is also the development state that Yang Yan dreams of.
He pinned his latest hopes on tourism development. During the interview, Chaqiao Village was approved as one of the eighth batch of ancient villages in Guangdong Province, which means protection and potential resource support from the world. However, Yang Yanchuan believes that resources and hope ultimately come from the Yang family's vast network of clansmen. "There was once a Hong Kong businessman who donated tens of millions of dollars to rebuild an ancestral hall in order to protect the ancient village of his clan. "He has that expectation.
Indeed, Ou Junyong also believes that "the clan society is supported by a strong overseas Chinese group, and when they make money outside, they will support the development of the clan by donating funds to the ancestral hall and establishing a ** association." In the villages he investigated, the village leaders were not only able to settle disputes within the villages, but also to continuously seek resources and financial support from overseas Chinese and other relatives, so that the clan could continue to develop.
But Yang Yan already had an instinctive sense of crisis, "My father's generation didn't build the capacity of the village. As a generation of our children, I don't want to restrict them from going out and developing. The construction of the village must be done in our generation. ”
Therefore, it is an unmissable opportunity for the inspection team to bring about reconciliation between the two villages, even if it is not the most important problem for the two villages to be resolved at present. The competition for the means of production between them and neighboring villages a hundred years ago has now changed its form and still exists, plaguing the people in the village. The way out is in **?They haven't found the answer yet. When the next window period for external intervention will be, no one can say.
But Yang Yanchuan will still talk about the expectation of the future, in that imagination, the incense of the Yang clan ancestral hall is very prosperous, several forces in the village form a joint force, Chaqiao Village is going up, "I want everyone to know that Chaqiao has a history of more than 1,000 years, 'there is no Jieyang City, there is Chaqiao Village'." ”
Issued in 202312.18. The 1121st issue of China News Weekly.
Magazine title: Behind the Feud Village Reconciliation.
Reporter: Wang Yu.