Foshan Spring Festival Customs
Foshan Spring Festival Customs
Nominating Unit: City of Foshan
Foshan Spring Festival customs are the grandest, the most spectacular holiday customs that last for the longest time, from December of the lunar calendar to Jan. 26th of the lunar calendar of the second year.
Based on different forms and time, Foshan Spring Festival customs can be divided into three types: welcoming spring in lunar December, celebrating the New Year and worshipping gods for good fortune. The welcoming of spring starts from late December of the lunar calendar to the New Year’s Eve, during which several customs are practised, including thanksgiving for the god of kitchen(Xie Zao), sweeping house, pasting Spring Festival couplets(Shang Huichun), frying dim sum(Kai Youhuo), strolling about the flower market(Xing Huajie), selling laziness, lighting lamps to get rid of dirty evil ghosts on the New Year’s Eve, saving food for the new year (Ze Nian) and so on. In the first month of the lunar new year (Xin Zheng), which refers to Jan. 1st to Jan. 11th of the lunar calendar, some customs are practised, such as burning firecrackers, welcoming the God of Wealth, buying fortune clams, singing dragon boat songs and carp songs, paying New Year calls, visiting the previous home of the wife(Xing Yinlu), lion dances and so on.
From the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, there were some Spring Festival customs of unique characteristics in Foshan and the nearby villages, such as welcoming the God of Wealth, buying fortune clams, singing dragon boat songs and carp songs. Nowadays, the customs have developed and changed a little bit. However, the most prevalent celebrating activity is still lion dances. The Spring Festival customs are rich in form and unique in characteristics, with main activities like visiting the ancestral temple on the first day of the new year, staging God Pageant Ceremonies, celebrating Lantern Festival, holding lantern shows, going for spring outing on the Lantern Festival. Besides, people are also engaged in activities like lettuces party, firework shows, traditional opera performances and Xing Tongji (crossing the Tongji bridge). Among them, performances on the Wanfu stage in the ancestral temple, Xing Yinlu (going back to the previous home of the wife) on Jan. 4th of the lunar calendar, God Pageant Ceremony on Jan. 6th of the lunar calendar, lantern shows on the Lantern Festival, and Xin Tongji are the most distinctive celebrating activities.(https://www.daowen.com)
In particular, Xing Tongji on Jan. 16th is the most acquainted and widely participated custom in Foshan. Just as the hundreds of years’ popular saying goes “Crossing the Tongji Bridge, having nothing for your worries.” On Jan. 16th, people in Foshan and nearby areas, men and women, old and young, go to the Tongji Bridge, burning incense and candles in the shrine. While some people go into the Guanyin Temple for burning incense and worshipping, with men praying and drawing divination sticks, women pulling the ribbons on lanterns in front of the statue of Guanyin for having a son and fortune. After that people buy a“lucky windmill” before crossing the Tongji Bridge, during which one must go from the north end of to the south end of the bridge with no returns. Today, Xing Tongji has become the largest folk cultural activity in Foshan.
Foshan Spring Festioal customs is a systematic reflection of the characteristics of Foshan folkcustoms, embodying the history and the current style and features of Lingnan, which is of great historical, cultural and artistic values. Nowadays, with the improvement of people’s living standard, the traditional farming practices are impacted, and the practices of some customs have been gradually disappearing. For example, people no longer pray for more heirs. Instead, they would rather promote reproductive health in response to the birth-control policy. Besides, people’s desire for food has not been so strong as that in the past. To some extent, many concepts of Spring Festival customs have been gradually weakening. Therefore, it is urgent to take appropriate measures to support and protect those customs.
