Dongkeng Dijing
127.Dongkeng Dijing
Nominating Unit: Luhe County, City of Shanwei
Dongkeng Dijing is a kind of parade racing in Dongkeng Town in Luhe County while celebrating the Lantern Festival. It originated in the 30th year of the Emperor Qianlong’s reign (1765) in the Qing Dynasty with a history of more than 240 years and was introduced by the ancestor Pengjian in Shangzu Village in Dongkeng from Suzhou prefecture.
During the Lantern Festival, the local people build lighthouses in every unincorporated village to hold the race. Within a village, people build towers with red or white glutinous rice and rice puddings. The family whose food tower can stand long outside without being soft and supple will be the winner. While among the seven unincorporated villages, the one whose lamp hut and colored lamps are made in the most artistic and colorful way will win.
Dijing parade is an important element in the local Lantern Festival, including yingshen(welcoming the divinities), yingdeng (welcoming the lamps) and performing the Dijing. On 6pm of every 15th January, the parade team, consists of 300 people, would start from the Shaiguping to every local village in succession along the fixed routine. Welcoming the divinities is led by four elders in their formal dresses to invite the ancestors worshipped in the village’s ancestral hall, who will follow the Dijing team to every village to jointly celebrate the Lantern Festival and pray for favorable climate, good harvest and health. Led by the people who sound gongs of the local authorities, the parade team is followed by the colored flag team and the yingdeng team. Yingdeng, also called “chudeng”, is to hang on the long bamboo in a line some little sylinder lamps, 13 to 14 lamps a line. People are linked by holding the two heads of the bamboo. The queue can reach the length of more than a hundred meters and looks like a swaying fire dragon, implying a thriving in both offspring and fortune. Then the behind is the perfectly dressed Dijing team, with its profiles imitated from people in the history and legendary novel like “Ba Xian Qi Ba Shou”, “Jin Shan Zhan Gu”, “Xi You Ji” (The Journey to the West), “Tian Xian Pei”, “San Xing Gong Zhao” and so on. The Dijing team is assisted by some folk art like Chuan Hua Deng (link lamps in a line), Shua Jin Long (waving to imitate golden dragons), Wu Shi (waving to imitate lions), Wu Xiang (waving to imitate elephants), Tiao Hua Lan and Yangko dancing, accompanied by the folk musical instruments characterized by the big gongs and drums of Chaozhou and the fireworks and firecrackers lighted along the route. All these make the whole parade even more grand and lively.(https://www.daowen.com)
Dongkeng Dijing combining literary material, costume tailing, folk art performance, folk beliefs and local culture, inherits and develops the traditional Chinese culture in the Lingnan District. Not only does it retain the charm and connotation of the traditional culture, but also embodies regional cultural character and the unique spirit of the Hakkas, thus boasting a high value in the study of the history and the folklore.
As society develops, the regional traditional culture was severely impacted by the western culture, changing the youth’s values and reducing their interest of the traditional folk activities like Dongkeng Dijing. What’s worse is that there are only two elders of making Dijing. With the plight of no successor, the related department needs to take effective measures to salvage and protect this folk art.
