(East-West Question) Liu Shilin: Why did Qu Yuan and the Dragon Boat Festival become the cultural heritage shared by mankind?
China News Agency, Changsha, June 2, Question: Why can Qu Yuan and the Dragon Boat Festival become the common cultural heritage of mankind?
——Interview with Liu Shilin, former director of Qu Yuan Memorial Hall in Miluo City, Hunan Province
Author Bai Zu and Fu Jingyi Xu Zhixiong
The Dragon Boat Festival is one of the four traditional festivals in China, which was combined with the commemoration of Qu Yuan a long time ago.
In 1953, the World Peace Council listed Qu Yuan, the great patriotic poet of China, as one of the "Four Great Cultural Celebrities of the World" along with Copernicus of Poland, Rabelais of France and Jose Martí of Cuba.
In 2009, the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival and its legends, with the commemoration of Qu Yuan as the core content, entered the "Representative List of Human Intangible Cultural Heritage", marking that Qu Yuan's works and spiritual values have become part of the human cultural heritage.
Exploring the story and development of Qu Yuan and the Dragon Boat Festival is of great significance to the inheritance of traditional Chinese culture and the exchange of world cultures.
China News Agency "East-West Questions" recently exclusively interviewed Liu Shilin, former curator of Qu Yuan Memorial Hall in Miluo City, Hunan Province and director of China Qu Yuan Society, to analyze the deep reasons why Qu Yuan and the Dragon Boat Festival became the common cultural heritage of mankind.
The following is a summary of the interview transcript:
China News Service reporter: The origin of the Dragon Boat Festival covers many aspects such as astrological culture, humanistic philosophy, etc., and integrates various folk customs. What kind of national spirit and cultural connotation does it contain?
Liu Shilin:
The Dragon Boat Festival is an important traditional festival of the Chinese nation. Its origins and legends vary by region and ethnicity. There are as many as ten kinds of legends. The commemorated figures or the gods sacrificed are not the same, but in general, they are accompanied by farming. Culture and Chinese ancestors' belief in the dragon gradually emerged.
The astrological culture is actually the dragon culture, because the ancestors believed that the dragon manipulated the wind, rain and thunder and lightning, and in order to pray for good weather, abundant crops, and the safety of people and animals, it was necessary to sacrifice to the dragon.
Especially around May 5th of the lunar calendar, which is not only an important season for agricultural production, but also a period of high wind, rain, thunder and lightning, it is naturally the best choice to sacrifice dragons. This is a sacrifice culture created by ancestors.
Dragon Boat Festival "Dragon Boat" ceremony.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Chen Chuhong
On the Dragon Boat Festival in 278 BC, Qu Yuan threw himself into the river on the banks of the Miluo River to die for his country. The local people dedicated all the activities and customs of the Dragon Boat Festival and festivals to Qu Yuan out of admiration and love for Qu Yuan.
The connotation of the Dragon Boat Festival has also changed from sacrificing dragons to commemorating Dr. Qu, who was patriotic for the people and who pursued the search from top to bottom, injecting new cultural connotations.
The customs of the Dragon Boat Festival can be divided into primitive customs and derived customs after Qu Yuan.
The original core theme is to exorcise plague, eliminate evil, eliminate disasters, and cure diseases, such as the ritual of sacrificing dragons, praying for good weather, peace and prosperity, such as hanging calamus and mugwort leaves are also for the purpose of eliminating disasters and epidemics, and praying for health and safety.
After Qu Yuan threw himself into the river, the custom was upgraded to a spiritual sustenance.
For example, the dragon boat used to be a part of the ritual of sacrificing the dragon, and its origin has nothing to do with Qu Yuan, but the meaning of the dragon boat race is that the people of Chu people used the dragon boat to disperse the fish in the river in order to commemorate Qu Yuan, hoping to prevent the fish and shrimp from eating Qu Yuan's body.
The custom of the Dragon Boat Festival is not only a sacrifice, but also a commemoration, which stimulates people's patriotic feelings. The sport of dragon boat racing also contains the spirit of people's cohesion and hard work and competition.
Dragon boat on the Miluo River during the Dragon Boat Festival.
Photo courtesy of the Propaganda Department of the Miluo Municipal Party Committee issued by China News Agency
China News Service reporter: How did the custom of commemorating Qu Yuan become a national festival and has been passed down to this day?
Liu Shilin:
Before the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Qu Yuan was only recorded in the "Han Shu·Yiwenzhi" as a cultural person.
During the period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Chinese regime experienced a long-term division. Both the rulers and the people hoped for a unified situation. Therefore, the festive atmosphere was used to obtain a spiritual balance and seek psychological compensation.
According to the records in the Song Book of the Southern Dynasty, during the Dragon Boat Festival, Emperor Wu of the Song Dynasty in the Southern Dynasty often sent some variegated rice dumplings to Emperor Taiwu of the Northern Wei Dynasty, and the festival became a carrier to promote inter-ethnic exchanges.
At that time, Qu Yuan and other historical figures were respected by people for a long time, but there was no clear way to commemorate them.
As the mysterious atmosphere of the Dragon Boat Festival fades, it is said that the death date of these historical figures happens to be around May 5th. The natural connection makes them gradually bound together, and a variety of folk activities such as sacrifice, entertainment, health care and so on are derived.
China News Service reporter: China's Dragon Boat Festival "applying to the World Heritage List" is a "joint package" of three provinces and four places. Why can Qu Yuan and the Dragon Boat Festival become a cultural heritage shared by mankind?
Liu Shilin:
The importance of the Dragon Boat Festival in China is almost second only to the Spring Festival. It has a history of more than 2,500 years. It derives from the seasonal customs of expelling poison and warding off evil spirits. Various folk activities such as sacrifices, entertainment, health care, etc. are derived from various places, mainly including sacrifices. Qu Yuan, commemorating Wu Zixu, inserting mugwort, hanging calamus, eating rice dumplings, racing dragon boats, etc., the activities are slightly different in different places.
People make dumplings on Dragon Boat Festival.
Photo courtesy of the Propaganda Department of the Miluo Municipal Party Committee issued by China News Agency
The "Dragon Boat Festival" in three provinces and four places in China was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list in 2006, and officially became a national holiday for the first time in 2008.
"Joint packaging" firstly proves that the Dragon Boat Festival has a broad cultural foundation in China, and secondly, it is also conducive to fully presenting this custom to the world.
The custom of the Dragon Boat Festival has become an intangible cultural heritage of mankind, because it has profound cultural connotations and contains the essence of patriotism, hard work and selfless dedication, which reflects the cohesion of the nation.
The culture of Qu Yuan and the Dragon Boat Festival has a wide influence in the world, and some countries and regions in the world also have activities to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival.
At the same time, the custom of the Dragon Boat Festival embodies the traditional Chinese sacrificial culture. The various sacrificial texts that are preserved today are the living fossils of the sacrificial culture, which fully embodies the Chinese nation's natural view of "harmony between man and nature", and clearly records the richness of the ancestors of the Chinese nation. And colorful social life and cultural content.
China News Agency reporter: Which other countries in the world have the custom of the Dragon Boat Festival? How should we carry out the protection and practice of the Dragon Boat Festival?
Liu Shilin:
Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and other East Asian and Southeast Asian countries have the custom of celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival, but there are differences in details due to different regional cultures, but the roots are all from China.
The purpose and significance of our protection of the Dragon Boat Festival heritage is to stimulate the whole nation's love and protection of traditional culture, enhance national cultural self-confidence, arouse the people to rethink the cultural forms and values created by their ancestors, and promote more rescue and protection. Scientific and standardized.
Nowadays, for many festival customs, we need to excavate and protect the culture inherent in the form under the premise of paying attention to the form.
Under the market economy, how to restore the purity and authenticity of traditional culture is worthy of serious consideration and research, and requires continuous efforts of generations to explore.
China News Service reporter: The Dragon Boat Festival has become a common cultural heritage in the world. What is the reference for Chinese culture to "go global"? How to strengthen the protection of China's thousands of years of ancient culture and intangible assets?
Liu Shilin: The
Dragon Boat Festival culture can go abroad and be recognized by the world mainly because of its inherent cultural characteristics - national patriotism, which has no borders.
There is no difference in essence between Chinese culture and Western culture. The important thing is to understand and communicate with each other.
Festival culture is a good carrier to promote this understanding and communication.
A mother and daughter from California, USA, made rice dumplings to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival, a traditional Chinese festival.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Zhang Lijun
In addition to the Dragon Boat Festival, the Spring Festival has also gone abroad.
When the Spring Festival comes, leaders of many countries send congratulatory letters to overseas Chinese, or directly participate in local activities to experience the peaceful and festive festival culture.
Their congratulatory letter is actually an expression of respect for Chinese culture, and it also shows that Chinese culture can not only "go out", but also become a bridge and a symbol of friendship with the West.
To better protect the ancient culture accumulated over thousands of years in China, we must first teach and pass it on to the next generation through innovative methods, so as to form an inheritance.
The second is to promote more actively, so that more young people can understand, recognize, and experience, so as to generate interest and take the initiative to learn and inherit.
Then, traditional culture should be made alive and moving through various activity carriers. For example, after the Dragon Boat Festival, you should row a dragon boat and eat rice dumplings to experience it yourself, instead of keeping it locked in a cabinet and only stored in books.
(Finish)
Interviewee Profile:
Photo by China News Agency reporter Fu Jingyi
Liu Shilin, born in November 1942, a native of Miluo, Hunan Province, is an associate research librarian and the former curator of Qu Yuan Memorial Hall in Miluo City, Hunan Province.
Director of the China Qu Yuan Society, executive director of the Hunan Qu Yuan Society, and the only Qu Xue expert who participated in all the annual conferences from the first to the 18th annual meeting of the China Qu Yuan Society.
He has published three monographs on Qu Yuan, published more than 70 related papers, and wrote the script of the TV teaching film "Qu Yuan".