China News Agency, Beijing, January 27th. Question: Why does the temple fair become a folk carnival where multiple civilizations blend together?
——Interview with Gao Wei, President of Beijing Folklore Society
China News Agency reporter Du Yan
In China, temple fairs can be traced back to ancient times and became popular after the Eastern Han Dynasty.
After thousands of years of evolution, it not only retains traditional customs, but also incorporates modern elements. It not only attracts overseas Chinese to participate, but also gradually walks out of the "Chinatown" and becomes a folk carnival where various ethnic groups interact and multiculturalism blends, showing people from all over the world. hope of life.
Why have temple fairs been favored for thousands of years?
Why are more and more cities around the world holding Chinese New Year temple fairs?
China News Agency "West Questions" recently interviewed Gao Wei, president of the Beijing Folklore Society, to explain how the temple fair has evolved over the centuries, and how the Spring Festival temple fair has become a bond for Chinese people around the world and a unique cultural symbol.
The interview transcript is summarized as follows:
China News Agency reporter: When did temple fairs originate in China? What's the point?
Gao Wei:
Temple fairs are the product of social development. As a social custom, they have profound historical and social reasons, and reflect the color of the times along with social development.
In China, temple fairs can be traced back to ancient times, and have been developing and changing.
The word "miao" is "temple" in traditional form, and "chao" is next to "guang".
Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jiezi" in the Eastern Han Dynasty said, "Temples respect the ancestors. Congguang, the sound of the court." That is to say, the original meaning of "temple" is a place for worshiping ancestors.
"A major event of the country lies in sacrifice and Rong." In ancient times, sacrifices were mainly to worship ancestor gods and gods of nature in order to pray for blessing and protection.
During the sacrificial offering, people gather together to hold ceremonies, offer offerings, play music, etc.
This can be regarded as the embryonic form of folk temple fairs.
During the Eastern Han Dynasty, Buddhism began to spread to China, and Taoism gradually took shape. Both Buddhism and Taoism held various activities in temples.
As time went by, some activities went out of the temple, and the parade included activities such as lions to ward off evil spirits, treasure-covered banners, and juggling of a hundred operas, which was very lively.
Small business hawkers saw that there were many people burning incense and worshiping Buddha in the temple, so they set up various stalls outside the temple.
Such folk activities held regularly in and around temples are called "temple fairs", also known as "temple fairs".
In 2022, people prayed at the February 2 Temple Fair of Taihao Mausoleum in Huaiyang, Henan.
Photo by Niu Shupei
It was in the Tang and Song Dynasties that the commercial atmosphere increased with the increase of mass and entertainment.
After the Tang and Song dynasties, temple fairs held on festivals such as the Chinese New Year, Lantern Festival, February 2, and March 3 continued and spread rapidly.
At the temple fair, officials, businessmen, people, monks and other people of all kinds were bustling with each other.
"On the day when the temple was opened, department stores gathered, including pearls, jade, silk, clothes, food, antiques, calligraphy and paintings, flowers and birds, insects and fish, as well as ordinary daily necessities, astrology, acrobatics and the like." This is Qing Dynasty. The grand occasion of the temple fair is recorded in "Yanjing Sui Shi Ji" written by Dai Fucha Dunchong.
Due to the integration of commerce and secular culture, temple fairs have evolved from folk belief activities such as sacrificial activities and pilgrimage to a folk event integrating belief, commerce, entertainment, tourism, leisure, visiting relatives, and meeting friends. It has increasingly become a part of people's lives. , has become an important part of Chinese folk culture.
In the Spring Festival of 2017, the "Emperor" performance at the Beijing Ditan Temple Fair attracted people to watch.
Photo by Tomita
China News Agency reporter: Why have Chinese people been keen on going to temple fairs for thousands of years?
Gao Wei:
Culture is the embodiment of spiritual values.
China has a vast territory, a wide variety of folk beliefs, and the characteristics of "different winds for ten miles and different customs for hundreds of miles". The folk culture is rich and colorful and has a long history.
Temple fairs are the epitome of history, tradition and culture.
Among the five batches of national intangible cultural heritage representative item catalogs that have been announced, 33 temple fairs have been selected as "folk custom" items, such as Beijing Changdian Temple Fair, Shanxi Jinci Temple Fair, and Shanghai Longhua Temple Fair.
There are distinctive market hawkers, hot-selling antique calligraphy and paintings, wonderful flower shows, wrestling matches, double-reed performances, Peking Opera a cappella... Beijing Changdian Temple Fair lasted for more than 400 years. Gradually, it has become a folk custom activity of visiting Changdian during the Spring Festival, which is held by both cultural and merchants. It is well-known in the capital for its unique charm of "combining elegance and vulgarity, blending business and entertainment", and has become a window and platform to display Beijing-style folk culture and Xuannan culture.
During the Spring Festival of 2018, a traditional wrestling performance at the Changdian Temple Fair in Beijing.
Photo by Jia Tianyong
The Jinci temple fair was called "Saishenhui" in ancient times. It originated from the ceremony in the Western Zhou Dynasty to worship Shuyu's mother Yijiang's birthday. It began on the first day of the seventh lunar month and lasted for five days.
During the temple fair, there are also social fire performances, etc., showing the ancient local folk customs of Taiyuan, Shanxi.
Shanghai Longhua Temple Fair is one of the famous temple fairs in East China. It can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty. In modern times, it once attracted the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore to visit here.
Longhua Temple Fair has the characteristics of urbanization, commerce and entertainment. In addition to offering sacrifices to gods and Buddhas, many legends and stories have been produced in the course of its development, and rich temple fair folk customs have been formed.
April 2015, Shanghai Longhua Temple Fair.
Photo by Zhou Dongchao
The temple fairs continue to develop and change to meet the spiritual and material needs of the people under the social conditions at that time, reflect the local customs and life styles, and reflect the changes of the times.
Therefore, from ancient times to the present, temple fairs have been popular in all parts of China, each with its own characteristics, and loved by the people.
In particular, the Spring Festival is the most important festival of the year. The beginning of the new year and the renewal of Vientiane bring people infinite joy. Visiting temple fairs during the Chinese New Year has become an important way for people everywhere to celebrate the New Year.
China News Agency reporter: How do temple fairs reflect folk customs and characteristics of the times? What kind of "cultural gene" does the temple fair inherit?
Gao Wei:
As an intangible cultural heritage, temple fairs are rooted in the cultural foundation of local society and reflect local folk customs.
Taking the Beijing area as an example, the old Beijing temple fair originated in the Liao Dynasty, developed in the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasties, and flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
In the past, there were many temples in Beijing, and there were many temple fairs. According to the content, they can be divided into religious, sacrificial, commercial, entertainment, and sightseeing; Fu Temple mainly sells department stores, snacks, flowers, birds and fish; Fengsan is the Temple of Earth, which mainly sells local products and department stores.
During the Lantern Festival in 2003, Beijing citizens guessed lantern riddles on Longfusi Street.
Shi Lishe
According to the data, after the founding of New China, temple fairs continued to be held.
Due to historical reasons, Beijing temple fairs once withdrew from the daily life of the people. In 1984, the Longtan Temple Fair and the Ditan Temple Fair were held in 1985, and the Beijing Temple Fair began to recover.
In February 1996, at the Longtan Temple Fair in Beijing, "rat" bearers carried the wedding sedan chair and played drums and music, attracting Chinese and foreign tourists who visited the temple fair to compete for the sedan chair as the "rat bride".
Photo by Wang Yao
With the reform and opening up, economic diversity brings cultural diversity.
The temple fairs in Beijing have gradually formed a diversified pattern: there are traditional temple fairs and fashionable temple fairs; there are Beijing-style temple fairs and foreign-style temple fairs;
In recent years, business temple fairs are in the ascendant, and museum temple fairs and science and technology museum temple fairs have become popular.
In February 2018, clowns performed at the "Foreign Temple Fair" in Beijing Shijingshan Amusement Park.
Photo by Ren Haixia
Connecting the ancient and the modern, integrating the East and the West, the temple fair, with its profound historical deposits and rich traditional charm, constantly incorporates new elements and reproduces and inherits. It is also a carrier for other traditional skills to be spread and inherited.
Temple fairs are a typical cultural space.
The so-called "cultural space" seems to be invisible and intangible, but it shows a cultural tradition or model in a holistic, comprehensive, real, ecological and living way.
The temple fair is to disseminate traditional Chinese culture in the form of large-scale group activities in society, and to complete a certain range of annual social etiquette with large-scale group activities.
This is a sense of ritual, which cannot be accomplished by individuals at home, nor is it to highlight a certain person or a certain interest, but requires the public to go out of the house, enter the event, and be in a festive environment different from the usual ones to satisfy emotional appeals and experience Cultural enjoyment is like people visiting temple fairs during the Spring Festival to get a "New Year's taste" experience.
On January 13, 2023, a small New Year temple fair was held in Baimi Community, Shichahai Street, Xicheng District, Beijing.
There are folk arts and intangible cultural heritage experience activities such as lion dance, paper-cutting, sugar painting, candied haws, rabbit master painting, writing blessings, ringing, and throwing pots.
Photo courtesy of Xicheng District, Beijing
China News Agency reporter: Why can temple fairs become a cultural link connecting the descendants of Chinese people at home and abroad?
Gao Wei:
From ancient times to the present, various temple fairs in China have attracted countless people.
In Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, traditional temple fairs with a wide range of believers have an inseparable connection with the motherland.
In the overseas Chinese residential areas, the temple fairs brought from the motherland are joyful and lively, inheriting the cultural blood of the Chinese nation in a special way.
In March 2014, the 10th Tai Kok Tsui Temple Fair in Hong Kong opened lively, with a large-scale parade.
Photo by Hong Shaokui
Chinese temple fairs are a living folklore, and many scholars call it "the Chinese people's own carnival".
Compared with Western Carnival and Halloween, these festivals all originate from religion and expand their connotations in the historical development, adding local cultural characteristics, rich and diverse in content, and are the epitome and extension of folk culture in various places; the difference is that Chinese temple fairs and farming Cultures are closely linked, and temple fairs in many places are held on a date based on the climate characteristics of the location and in combination with local customs.
Therefore, Chinese temple fairs often echo the "twenty-four solar terms" of the lunar calendar, emphasizing the harmonious coexistence of nature and people.
As an important festival that has been passed down by the Chinese nation for thousands of years, the Spring Festival is the most important festival in the hearts of Chinese people. It carries the national spirit of benevolence, harmony, and hard work of Chinese culture, conveys the good wishes of individuals, and shows the essence of human beings. Love each other, support each other, help each other.
In recent years, overseas "Spring Festival fever" has been heating up year by year, and many countries have successively designated the Chinese Spring Festival as a local public holiday.
Among the activities to celebrate the Spring Festival, holding temple fairs has become the best choice for many cities. Performances such as dragon and lion dances, parades and other performances are the mainstay, supplemented by markets, which sublimates the cultural spirit conveyed by the festival.
In February 2008, Xilai Temple, a Chinese temple in Los Angeles, USA held a traditional temple fair, and Chinese and overseas Chinese celebrated the New Year.
Photo by Jia Guorong
In the joyful and peaceful atmosphere of the festival, the content and form of Chinese temple fairs will continue to be enriched and changed in the future, and become a "cultural space" that people around the world are willing to experience. In this space, you can feel the beauty between people and the Chinese tradition. Although folk customs have been around for thousands of years, they are timeless.
(Finish)
Respondent profile:
Gao Wei, president of Beijing Folklore Society, consultant of Beijing Folklore Artists Association, member of Beijing Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Expert Committee, has been engaged in folklore research for a long time.
Author of "China's Intangible Cultural Heritage", "Beijing Folk Culture History", "Siheyuan" (this book won the "Shanhua Award" for Chinese Folk Literature and Art in 2004), "Thirteen Files of Banners and Drums Moving Together", etc.