Bell ringing in Dazhong Temple, monkey touching in Baiyun Temple, stilts walking in Liulichang ... If you want to know how old Beijing spent the New Year, you might as well visit a temple fair at the foot of the imperial city this Spring Festival! Temple fairs in Beijing have a history of more than 800 years. Compared with the Forbidden City, Beihai and Summer Palace, their vitality is not inferior at all. Walking here, you can feel the traditional flavor of old Beijing.
Temple fair, also known as "temple fair" or "festival field". Temple fairs in Beijing began in the Liao Dynasty and rose in the Ming Dynasty. There are not only flavor snacks at the temple fair, but also folk performing skills such as playing with lions, walking on stilts, playing with traditional Chinese characters and pulling foreign films. It is the most representative folk entertainment activity in old Beijing.
Some people say that the temple fair is a carnival for Beijingers. During the Spring Festival, the scale of temple fairs in Beijing is huge, from Ditan, Longtan, Baiyunguan and Daguan Garden to Changdian, Shijingshan, Dongyue Temple and Lotus Pond ... Dozens of temple fairs have stirred up a storm in the city, including not only a row of stalls, but also hundreds of plays, including acrobatics, martial arts, folk art, juggling, drama, westerners and Latin movies.
If ditan temple fair catches up with the tide, you can watch the "Sacrifice to the Ground" performance; When you go to Baiyunguan Temple Fair, you can enjoy traditional programs such as "touching the stone monkey" and "making money" ... As for the favorite of old Beijing, it is natural to count the Changdian Temple Fair in Liulichang. Changdian is outside the Peace Gate. In the Ming Dynasty, glazed tiles were fired for the palace. Later, there were more and more stalls selling antique calligraphy and painting and Four Treasures of the Study, and the cultural color of the factory gradually became strong. Compared with weekdays, this area is particularly lively in the first month. From the first day of the first month to the fifteenth day of the first month, Liulichang Street, Hepingmenwai Street and other long things, all kinds of new year's goods stalls are lined up, calligraphy and painting, copybooks, jewelry, jade ... dazzling, stilts, Taiping drum, motorists' club, five tiger sticks ... all kinds of folk performances are interspersed at the same time, which is even more exciting.
When visiting the temple fair, don't forget to taste authentic Beijing snacks, including salty noodles tea, fried belly, snowballing, fried liver, bean juice, sugar-coated haws, sugar balls and sticky bean bags. Vendors who operate flavor snacks set up cloth sheds, displayed shop names, and filled long tables and benches to welcome guests. Others just park their burdens or wheelbarrows on the street corner, surrounded by people, and the full flavor of the year comes.
Eat a long street banquet in Wuzhen Ancient Street.
This Spring Festival, if you are tired of the traditional reunion dinner, or don't want to socialize with your family, you might as well invite three or five relatives and friends to Wuzhen for a special long street banquet in the beautiful and elegant Jiangnan water town. It is the most traditional Chinese New Year custom in Wuzhen for a hundred years. The Long Street Banquet is also called "Square Banquet" by local people. "Fang" is a residential unit in ancient Wuzhen. In the past, on holidays, large families would hold a banquet in the square and invite friends and passers-by in the neighborhood to share the happiness of the year. Neighbors put tables and chairs along the street, connected by wooden tables, forming a lively long street banquet. Today, Wuzhen still retains the custom of holding a banquet in Long Street. From the first day to the seventh day, dozens of miles of Zhaxi old street, every family set up a stove to cook in the street, and the air was filled with the smell of mutton, which reappeared the grand occasion of "the long street is two or three miles long, and the fragrant dust rises in the street" written by Zhao Huan, a poet of the Ming Dynasty. It's just that the poet didn't know that the dishes at the banquet were much richer than at that time, and braised mutton, local rice wine and Sanjiu liquor became the most indispensable "golden partners" at the banquet. After eating and drinking enough, remember to do as the Romans do and "take the Ten Bridges" to pray for your family to avoid disaster. In the ancient Wuzhen, there is a popular activity to avoid disasters, which is called "Walking Ten Bridges" or "Eliminating All Diseases". After getting dressed, the women each walked in teams with a crock that is usually used to decoct medicine. When crossing the bridge, they threw the crock into the river, thinking that this would ensure that their families would be free from diseases and disasters in the new year. Later, the act of throwing medicine cans evolved into a simple blessing activity. Especially on the Lantern Festival, Wuzhen people have the custom of walking the bridge. Three or five confidants go hand in hand, and at least ten bridges must be taken on the way. The route cannot be repeated.
Pingyao watched the social fire and played with his back stick.
Speaking of traditional annual flavor, I'm afraid it's not as strong as Pingyao ancient town in Shanxi. Red lanterns in Wang's courtyard, firecrackers lanterns in Rishengchang ticket number, stilts yangko in Shehuo Festival ... Many golden music can make you happy in the New Year.
When the Spring Festival enters Pingyao, the overwhelming "flavor of the year" is always coming. Only the "Social Fire Festival" in the streets of the Ming and Qing Dynasties for a whole month was enough to turn this ancient city upside down: hanging lanterns, building colorful buildings, loading floats, dancing dragons and lions, throwing hydrangeas, carrying sedan chairs, performing Jin operas and showing off folk skills ... Old artists blew suona, and the square surged.
After watching the social fire, you might as well go to the Changsheng Garden in the Ming and Qing markets to find a pot of yellow wine, and then order a sauce beef at Yide Inn. Pingyao folk song says, "fifteen days of social fire, one year without illness." . If you don't light lanterns, the moon is not round and you are not sad for the New Year. "If you have time, I suggest going to see the back post of Pingyao Yincun. This traditional custom is very famous in the local area.
Dongwuli, the ancient city of Pingyao, is Yincun, and the local social fire is famous for carrying sticks. This performance is very special. First of all, we should choose handsome men and beautiful women, dress them up carefully, tie them on iron bars, and tie them on the back of strong men below. After the performance began, the stick-bearer took various dance steps with the help of gongs and drums according to the drama stories and characters played by children on his back. There are various ways to carry the stick, including single back, double back and three-person back stick. There is a saying in Yincun: Girls who have been carrying sticks are easy to get married when they grow up. Therefore, despite the cold weather during the Spring Festival, there is not a local parent who doesn't want their children to carry sticks on their backs.
Guizhou celebrates the Oriental Bull Running Festival.
Miao people respect cows. During the Spring Festival, some Miao villages in Guizhou will hold bullfighting competitions. Although the bullfighting scene is not as gorgeous as Spain, it is no less than Spain.
The "Bull Running Festival" in Pingzhai, Kaiyang, Guizhou Province is very famous in the local area, with exciting and fierce competitions and quite national characteristics, and is known as the "Oriental Bull Running Festival". The Bull Running Festival here is held on the 5th,15th and 25th of the first month of every year. On the day of the bullfight, the local and nearby Miao compatriots all dressed up and gathered at the bullfight site, with gongs and drums, full of people and extraordinary excitement.
Bullfighting originated from Miao people's worship and love for cattle. The cattle used are specially and carefully raised, and they are all male buffaloes, and they are not engaged in plowing, pulling carts and grinding flour. Before the bullfighting began, the middlemen recommended by each village ran around among the owners of the cattle to learn about the length, height, age, weight and growth of the horns of the cattle, and then concentrated on deciding who to fight with. After obtaining the owner's consent, the owner announced the start of the bullfight. According to tradition, the bulls who win the battle are called the King of Cows, the God of Cows and the Holy Cows, which can bring honor to the whole village, so they are loved and worshipped by people.