Chinanews.com, Shuozhou, February 5th, title: The stilt team in Saibei Village: 70 years of perseverance on the tiptoes
Author Gao Yuqing
"The Biography of Guan Hanqing" records: "Qing is 70 years old, and the Spring Festival is celebrated on stilts." Guan Hanqing, a dramatist in the Yuan Dynasty, must walk on stilts every Spring Festival, and he still insists on walking on stilts until he is 70 years old. building".
Today, more than 700 years later, in Saibei, 500 kilometers away from his hometown (now Yuncheng, Shanxi), there is also a folk team who loves to walk on stilts, and has persisted for more than 70 years.
On February 4th (the fourteenth day of the first lunar month), in Shanyin County, Shuozhou City, a famous historical and cultural city in Shanxi Province, a long-awaited Lantern Festival carnival was staged as scheduled.
Folklore activities such as majestic gongs and drums, Yangko twisting, stilt walking, dragon and lion dances, etc., attracted nearly 10,000 people and tourists to watch.
Among them, the stilt team from Anxiangsi Village, men, women and children all participated in the battle, which was particularly eye-catching in the performance team.
On February 4th (the fourteenth day of the first lunar month), in Shanyin County, Shuozhou City, a famous historical and cultural city in Shanxi Province, a long-awaited Lantern Festival carnival was staged as scheduled.
Photo by Gao Yuqing
Walking on stilts, one of the traditional Chinese folk customs, is said to have appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period.
In folk festivals, performers tie their feet to wooden sticks, dress up as matchmakers, younger brothers, Guan Gong, Eight Immortals and other characters, or dance or dance swords or twist Yangko, which is a popular form of cultural and artistic activities.
"In our village, there is a custom of walking on stilts every year." 19-year-old Huang Zhigang is the youngest performer of the Anxiang Temple Stilt Team.
Putting on bottoms, drawing eyebrows, and arranging costumes... On that day, before dawn, he and his predecessors put on makeup and prepared for the Lantern Festival performance in the county.
When the reporter saw Huang Zhigang, he had already dressed up and was sitting in a truck with the team members waiting for the scene.
The Anxiang Temple stilt team is performing.
In Shanxi, a province with a large history and culture, walking on stilts has always been the highlight of the Lantern Festival in various places.
The Anxiang Temple stilt team that Huang Zhigang belongs to was established in 1951 and has a history of more than 70 years. The members are all local villagers.
According to Wang Donghong, director of the village committee of Anxiangsi Village, the village has a tradition of "respecting the Eight Immortals" every year on the first month of the lunar calendar, that is, holding village entertainment around the eighth day of the first month.
Among them, the most important entertainment item is walking on stilts that the villagers are proud of.
"Almost every household can do it." Huang Zhigang liked to watch stilt walkers since he was a child. Influenced by his grandfather and father, he also joined the village stilt team when he grew up.
In his view, walking on stilts is not difficult, "as long as you are brave enough."
"Inheriting the folk culture passed down from generation to generation in this village" has been included in his life plan.
This idea of Huang Zhigang made the old man Huang Cunxi very pleased.
Now 65 years old, he is a native farmer and the oldest member of the stilt team.
"As long as I can remember, I have liked stilts. When I was fifteen or sixteen, I learned to walk on stilts from the older generation." Huang Cunxi said, and now he has also cultivated a group of young inheritors, "about 20."
Folk activities such as walking on stilts and dragon and lion dances attracted nearly 10,000 people and tourists to watch.
The reporter saw at the scene that 50 stilt performers dressed in costumes and in different shapes stepped on red wooden sticks 1.2 meters high, lined up in a neat formation, and twisted to their heart's content with the lively rhythm of gongs, drums and cymbals.
There are many female performers in the performance team.
Wu Chunmei, 50, was one of them. She was the first female performer to join the stilt team of Anxiangsi Village.
Holding the idea of "who says daughters are inferior to men", he joined the stilt team when he was eighteen or nineteen.
Wu Chunmei said that she was not afraid of heights or falling, so she decided to learn to walk on stilts.
In this small village in northern Saipan, there are many "stilt fans" like Huang Zhigang, Huang Cunxi, and Wu Chunmei.
In their hearts, this folk carnival is persistence, love, and a kind of unchanging persistence.
"It must be passed on from generation to generation." Huang Cunxi said.
(over)