Parade with Traditional Percussion Instruments...

140.Parade with Traditional Percussion Instruments and Flags

Nominating Unit: Jiexi County, City of Jieyang

Parade with Traditional Percussion Instruments and Flags, commonly called “Parade with Drums” and“Parade with Flags” and originated in the Qing Dynasty, is a traditional artistic parade among the people when the folks in Jiedong County pray for a harvest year or celebrate a happy event. Traditionally, it gave priority to parade with divinity or celebration, only accompanied by some simple instruments. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, the parade team was enriched with quite a few elements of the time like various incidental music and flags with the rise of Chaozhou Opera. At present, the parade spread to every County and town with Jiedong County and Paotai Town as the center.

The parade was mainly constituted by the flag team and the Chaozhou instrumental team usually with the former in the front. The flag team includes dozens of units like the escort, the gong, hengpei, wufengqi, nianbiao, yaogu (waist drum), maiden show, fire play by children, flower basket and so on with wufengqi and nianbiao as the main body. Wufengqi was commonly called “wubiao” (military), made up by some strong men, dozens or a hundred plus, with straw shoes, bamboo hat and warrior clothes. Every one of them shoulders a triangle flag, 3 or 4 meters tall, with centipedes on it. Nianbiao is also called “wenbiao”(civilian), made from bamboo flagpole and rectangle silk on which broidered “fengtiaoyushun” (favorable climate) and “guotaiminan” (The country flourishes and people live in peace). Two to four people are needed to hold a flag which is decorated with some rare treasure like famous cigarettes or art work so as to tame it. The number of the flags varies from 36 to 160. The team mainly consists of young people with the male in kaftan while the female in skirts of cheongsam style. In the process of the parade, the audience can pick from them the most handsome male and the most elegant female.(https://www.daowen.com)

Chaozhou drum team consists of dozens or one or two hundred people, divided into gongs and drum team as well as stringed music team. The gongs and drum team mainly play percussion music, commonly called “wupan”, using 9 drums at most, accompanied by suluo, zhongluo, dabo, yueluo, qinzai and so on. The stringed music team has 4 to 16 suona horn, accompanied by yehu, erhu, yangqin, pipa, sanxuan, guzheng, yuan and so on. Commanded by the drum and led by the suona horn, the whole team will perform the melodies like Kaishanchuan, Nanzhenggong, Xiaoyangzhou, Paowangbuyu, Honglongxishui and so on.

The parade combined folk parade with divinity, traditional art show and traditional Chaoshan music with the local traditional festivals and customs and folk celebrations, partcipated by at least three or four hundred people or at most thousands of people and watched by more, which has produced a favorable social effect. And it is of important value to the study of traditional folk culture and social customs in Chaoshan.

At present, however, the team doesn’t develop well and faces the plight of no successors because the young people are out for work or business. Besides, as the costume and the instruments are torn yet not able to be updated, their activities are reducing, which needs the attention of the related department.