Temple fair (national intangible cultural heritage) is a Chinese folk religion and customs, generally held in the Lunar New Year, Lantern Festival, February two dragons raise their heads and other festivals, but also one of the forms of Chinese bazaars. The formation of temple fairs is related to the development and religious activities of temples, and is held on festivals or prescribed dates of temples, and is mostly located in and near temples.
Follow the Archives Tour of the Canal "The first stop of the new year, we made a collection of temple fairs along the Grand Canal to celebrate the Spring Festival with everyone.
The temple fair of the Ducheng God's Temple is a kind of Chinese folk activity, which belongs to the earliest and one of the most lively temple fairs in Beijing. In the Ming Dynasty, the scale of the temple fair of the capital city god temple is quite considerable, according to the Ming Dynasty "Yandu Tour Chronicle" records: "the temple market, to the city in the west of the city god temple and the name also, west to the temple, east to the criminal department street, about three miles, roughly the same as the lamp market." At the beginning of each month.
I.X. The market opens on the fifth and twenty-fifth, and there are more light markets for one day. "The annual lamp market in the Ming Dynasty can cause a sensation in the nine cities, and the temple fair of the capital city god temple can be compared with the lamp market, and its grand occasion can be imagined.
"Iron Flower" is a famous traditional folk program in Kaifeng, an intangible cultural heritage project in Henan, and the first of the top ten folk arts in the Yellow River Basin. Iron flower is a kind of large-scale folk traditional fireworks, is a kind of folk cultural performance skills discovered by ancient Chinese craftsmen in the process of casting utensils, which began in the Northern Song Dynasty, flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and has a history of more than 1,000 years. Iron flowers are mostly spread in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, with Henan and Shanxi being the most popular.
Tianjin Huanghui is a kind of Mazu festival unique to northern China, formerly known as "Niangnianghui" and "Tianhou Shenghui". Tianjin Imperial Fair is also a kind of temple fair, which is a festival related to culture and entertainment, and there are various folk artists performing for a living. Among them, the main ones are: shadow puppetry, flat play (i.e., puppet show), cross talk, double reed, magic (known as "illusion" in ancient China, commonly known as "juggling"), counting treasures, playing flags, Yangge, stilts, etc.
The source of the temple fair lies in the suburban system of the temple community in ancient times - sacrifice, as soon as the temple fair opens, all directions come to worship, worship the gods and incense, and pray to return home. It is an activity that revolves around the worship of the gods at the temple and the festival, and is the theme of the traditional temple fair. Typical temples in this regard include the Mazu (Tianhou Temple) temple fair in Tianjin, the Miaofeng Mountain and Baiyunguan temple fair in Beijing, and the "rolling immortals" temple fair in Suzhou.
The dragon dance is based on the dragon culture and is produced with the expression of the dragon spirit as the carrier. It is recorded in "Zhou Yi Qiangua": do not use the hidden dragon, see the dragon in the field, fly the dragon in the sky, and have regrets. In the Shang Dynasty, the "Classic of Mountains and Seas: The Great Wilderness of the West" recorded the custom of the ancestors to pray for rain as a "soil dragon", which was once described as "the situation of holding things and dancing into dragons, they continued to move up and down."
Baiyun Temple is the largest Taoist temple in Beijing, known as "the first jungle of Quanzhen". The main activities of the opening of the temple in the first month of Baiyun Temple include "touching the stone monkey" at the mountain gate, "hitting the money eye" on the Wofeng Bridge, and "looking for the life star" before the 24 filial piety pictures of the 12 zodiac signs in the Yuanchen Palace.
Jining is the place with the highest concentration of canal folklore. In that year, there was a lively temple fair in front of the gate of Cideng Temple, there was a city god out on patrol in spring, there was a welcome and send-off of the little dragon king in the summer flood season, and there were fireworks in Lu Gongtang on the birthday of Lu Dongbin. Every year in the Spring Festival, dragon lanterns, dry boats, stilts, Yangge, lion dance, walking the streets and alleys, endlessly, as well as perennial fishing drums, cross talk, fast books, tricks, qigong, martial arts, each show stunts, lively and extraordinary. The most lively is the "City God Patrol", which is carried by two wooden "City God Gods" in turn to parade around the five passes and four corners inside and outside the city.
The form and content of the temple fair are very diverse, not only the celebration methods have been formed according to customs and habits all over the country, but also Chinatowns and Chinese communities around the world also have large-scale activities during the Spring Festival, with cultural and artistic tours as the main body, supplemented by temple markets. The above are some of the temple fairs and interesting activities along the Grand Canal compiled by the Digital Rosetta Project.
May we not forget the traditional way of celebrating the New Year, go out of the house, enter the folk customs, unlock different ways of celebration, and get more different joys. All members of the Digital Rosetta Project wish everyone a happy Year of the Dragon, a bright future.