The Origin of Welcoming the Master in Teochew

The Teochew Master's Ceremony is a kind of multi-god worship folk belief activity, which originated from the sacrifice of the god of the countryside in ancient times. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the custom of "on the day of the community, the neighbors would gather together, gather the livestock and mash, set up a house under a tree, offer sacrifices to the gods, and then give food and drink to the gods" was already in place.

The origin of Chaozhou's "Welcome to the Master"

The "Welcome to the Master" festival was developed from the "Bogong" festival held in the townships of Chaozhou. Generally in the first month of the lunar calendar every year, in a town of one village a day, each village takes turns to make hot (equivalent to the temple fair in the north) and welcome the master.

Welcome the master is a ritual activity, the village of young and strong men will carry eight carries sedan chair, carrying the master walked all over the village of the main road and alleys, the procession is huge, the team includes the standard hand (carrying the standard flag), the card player (hold up the card), the sedan chair, the musicians composed of. Welcoming the Master is to pray for good weather this year and peace for the whole village. When welcoming the lord, villagers can touch the lord with their hands, which is rumored to bring good luck and keep the village safe for a year.

The parade consists of several hundred people, including gongs, drums, gongs and drums performers, as well as singers of Teochew Opera roles. The first wave of the parade is led by the elders of the village, who are the first to walk in the front of the parade.

The second wave of people were flower girls and young boys dressed in all kinds of Chiu Chow opera costumes, each carrying a large flag embroidered with life-size dragons and phoenixes and auspicious idioms, such as "good weather," "prosperity," and "abundant harvest.

The third wave of people is the most representative of Chaoshan's Yingge gongs and drums performance team waving their hands to the crowd, everyone's face is full of joy, joyful feelings. The Yingge dance is a folk collective dance.

The dance is based on the plot of the Liangshan villagers who attacked the Daiming Mansion to rescue Lu Junyi at the Lantern Festival. Ying song and dance characters, according to the Liangshan heroes face painting and wear the corresponding costumes, such as Guan Sheng flower face red beard, Li Kui flower face black short beard, Wu Sung dressed as a young man, Lu Zhishen flower face short beard monk attire and so on. The dancers hold a pair of colorful wooden sticks in each hand and turn them over in their hands while dancing. The dance movements are based on the southern school of martial arts, robust and powerful. The accompanying drums and music are still mainly Chaozhou big gongs and drums, and the dancers also make neat yells with the drums and music from time to time, which makes them look magnificent, serious and solemn. Because of the symmetry, in addition to the performance of the above mentioned male songs, there are female songs.

The female Yingge's performance is soft and rigid, and the wooden stick is struck loudly and playfully. The dance is also a feminine one, with a twist of the body.

The fourth wave is the gong and drum corps. The parade's instrumental music includes playing erhu, guzheng, xiao, gongs and drums, and most of the teenagers in the township who play these instruments are teenagers. The teenagers practice at a regular time each evening before the parade and are coached by older members of the township who know their instruments well.

There is also a fifth and a sixth wave that tours along the main roads of the township and neighboring townships. People watching clapped and applauded.

Some of the customs in Chaoshan

1, Kung Fu Tea

Tasting Kung Fu Tea is one of the famous customs in the Chaoshan area. In the local Chaoshan area, every family has Kung Fu Tea, which is served for several rounds of tea every day. The so-called Kung Fu Tea is not the name of a kind of tea or tea type. Rather, it is a technique of making tea. It is called Kung Fu Tea because this way of making tea is extremely elaborate and requires a certain amount of effort to operate.

2. Shaving the Hair

In most places in Chaoshan, when a baby is born on the first month of its life, the elders have to shave the baby's hair. There are also some places where it is done on the 12th day of the baby's birth. The first shaving of a newborn baby's head has always been regarded as a happy event, shaving the fetal hair brought out from the mother's womb, and finally can "start from scratch and become a new person", so the shaving of the fetal hair is a serious and solemn ceremony, which is characterized by a certain number of rules and regulations.

3, seven kinds of vegetables

Seven kinds of vegetables is the Chaoshan folk quite a characteristic of a food custom, this kind of seven different varieties of vegetables cooked into the dishes, there is a "New Year's Day big money" meaning. Although the flavor is strange, but mainly for the New Year to figure a lucky head.

4, playing oil fire

"Playing oil fire" is a kind of Chaoshan Alley custom, built a new house, into the house to live, the master must ask the master to come to the house to do a practice, to drive away the indoor evil things, in order to live in peace with the family. This is the Chaoshan countryside into the Alcove ghost repellent ceremony, commonly known as "playing oil fire".

5, out of the garden

Out of the garden means that when a boy or girl reaches the age of 15, he or she will be baptized by such a ceremony. On the origin of the phrase "out of the garden", it is generally believed that underage children in a colorful garden, until the age of 15 years old, announcing the transformation of the childhood era to another era, so to step out of the "garden" towards the threshold of adulthood, and from then on, to be responsible for themselves and society. The first thing you need to do is to take responsibility for yourself and for society.