Folklore questions, help me if you know!!!!

Abstract: The incorporation of traditional festivals such as the Qingming Festival into national holidays has triggered a series of discussions on the occurrence, inheritance and significance of traditional festivals. This paper seeks to understand the evolution of the Qingming Festival in order to get a glimpse of the possible paths and ways in which the folklore inheritance has taken place, and tries to grasp the humanistic significance of the folklore inheritance as well as its important role in the process of modernization in terms of the spirit of the nation and the national culture.

Keywords: Qingming Festival, Folklore, Folklore Inheritance, Humanistic Significance

In recent years, with the emergence of the "intangible cultural heritage" fever, the word "folklore" has appeared frequently in the media. 2008, the state made adjustments to the annual holiday schedule, and the government has also made adjustments to the annual holiday schedule. In 2008, the national holiday arrangement was adjusted throughout the year, and for the first time, traditional national holidays such as the Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival were included in the national legal holidays. At a time when the process of globalization is accelerating, such an initiative is very important for the protection of the unique way of life and cultural characteristics of the nation, the promotion of a sense of national identity, and the promotion of a positive national spirit. But at the same time, it seems that we can not be optimistic. In the Qingming, Dragon Boat Festival, these traditional festivals back to the people and the focus of national attention at the same time, people for these festivals itself seems a little strange. The media often see similar discussions: Qingming Festival, in addition to visiting the graves of our ancestors, what else can we do? Similarly, during the "two sessions" in 2008, the government of Jining City, Shandong Province, announced that it would build a so-called "Chinese Cultural Symbol City" in Jining, with the intention of making Jining a "cultural capital". The announcement of the "Chinese Culture Symbol City" has forced people to reflect on what "culture" really is and what "folklore" really is. In the vision of modern folklore, "folklore is the foundation layer or cornerstone of a country a nation *** with culture." [1] (Chen Qinjian. Chinese Folklore. P180) "Once folklore is formed in a society, it becomes a self-controlling and automatic independent system, and continues to be inherited with relative stability, Chan Chan." [2] (Chen Qinjian. Chinese Folklore. P179) In this sense, in order to better understand and position "folklore", we can conduct a reverse examination from the perspective of folklore inheritance.

I. Evolution of the Qingming Festival

Often, when researchers talk about the origin of the Qingming Festival, they focus on the relationship between the Qingming Festival and the Cold Food Festival. Of course, the Cold Food Festival is a very important part of the evolution of the Qingming Festival and its eventual formation. But just stay here, and can not grasp the full relationship between the Qingming Festival and the Chinese festival tradition, therefore, in the discussion of the evolution of the "Qingming Festival", we should look to an earlier time, because back, the Chinese people's traditional festival "Qingming" was started by the ancient "Spring Festival". The festival has evolved from the ancient "spring custom" of the Chinese people.

In ancient times, it was believed that spring was the season when everything grew and autumn was the season when everything matured, and that there was only spring and autumn in a year, as evidenced by the fact that people called history "spring and autumn". Most of the first histories were chronicles, and people used spring and autumn to mark history, echoing the concept of one spring and one autumn as one year. "Our ancient forefathers in the early days of civilization distinguished only two beats - spring and autumn. This was an epiphany of the agrarian-oriented Chinese forefathers from the rhythms of natural climate and production." [3] (Chen Qinjian. Chinese Folklore. P82). At that time, the life of the ancestors was organized around the division of two major seasons. In spring, the breeze was warm, everything recovered, and people's mood was cheerful. In the process of production and labor, the ancestors felt the unique scent of spring. In spring, the season of the beginning of life, they not only engaged in agricultural production, but also formed a whole set of customs, which is the ancient spring customs. In the process of inheritance and development, spring customs evolved into a series of festivals and customs, the formation of the "Qingming Festival" and this inheritance is closely related.

"As a festival, Qingming is different from a pure festival. Festivals are signs of changes in the climate and the order of the seasons in China, while festivals contain certain customary activities and commemorative significance." [4] (Zhu Yuhong. Chinese Folklore and Customs Expo (Volume 3) - Festivals and Entertainment. P83) Qingming is a very important festival at the very beginning, and around Qingming is the time when spring plowing begins. At the same time, it was also a favorite time for people to go on spring excursions. Later, however, in addition to the spring excursions, the Qingming Festival gradually added the worship of ancestors to the connotation of the Qingming Festival, and to explore how this evolution occurred, we have to shift the topic to the discussion of the "Cold Food Festival".

Historically speaking, although there are many legends about the Cold Food Festival, these legends were not necessarily created before the festival took place; on the contrary, many of the legends were gradually formed and spread after the festival had already taken shape. On the one hand, these legends have added something new to the festive connotation of the Cold Food Festival, and on the other hand, they have added a lot of difficulties to the work of exploring the origin of the Cold Food Festival. About the origin of the Cold Food Festival, a very important argument is that Chong Er, the Duke of Jin, practiced the prohibition of fire in order to commemorate the burning death of Jie Zi Tui. However, many scholars disagree with this statement, and some also believe that the story of Jie Zi Pui was fabricated to explain the origin of the Cold Food Festival. "The prototype of Jie Zi Pui was a human sacrifice that was burned to death as a tree spirit and ancient spirit in the ancient custom of changing fire," and "the Cold Food was meant to mourn the death of those who died on behalf of the gods in the custom of changing fire." [5] (Lai Liang Zhang Linlin. Festivals . P43) Of course, this is not what this paper seeks to examine, so we can leave these examinations to experts in the field. This Cold Food Festival has gone through several interruptions and successions in history. "Cao Cao, for example, once came down and banned the custom of eating cold food, but in the Sui dynasty it became an official holiday again, with the date set 105 days after the winter solstice, coincidentally only a day or two short of Qingming. Before the Yuan Dynasty, Qingming was only one day of the Cold Food Festival", "After the Yuan Dynasty, the custom of forbidding fire during the cold food festival gradually died out. But the custom of visiting graves during the festival did not decline, and the name 'Qingming' unknowingly replaced the Cold Food." [6] (Lai Liang Zhang Linlin. Festivals . P45) However, the custom of "visiting the graves" has not always been practiced since ancient times. "Tang Xuanzong Kaiyuan twenty years (732), the 'Xu Shishu cold food on the tomb edict' has 'cold food on the wood, the ritual scripture is not written, in recent generations, soaked to become a custom,' words, indicating that the cold food (as well as connected with the Qingming) to visit the grave of the custom in fact, with no signs of antiquity, is the gradual formation of the modern era, due to the folklore of the great, the state and the government to recognize it, the cold food (and the Qingming) to visit the grave of the custom is actually no sign of the ancient times, is the gradual formation of modern times. The state and government recognized it, and the custom of cold food entered a new stage." [7] (Cheng Qiang. Folk Elves Full of Wisdom--Research on Folk Culture and Folk Literature. P123) However, this does not mean that there is not a bit of basis for ancestor worship. "The major events of a country are in rituals and ron", in ancient times, sacrifices were the important events of a country. Ancient kings, lords and feudal lords were the ruling class who needed to worship their ancestors, and ordinary people also wanted to be blessed by their ancestors and to send their condolences to the deceased. The ancient Chinese concept of life and death often has the connotation of "transformation", and there is no clear boundary between death and life, the Shuowen Jiezi has "ghosts, return also" such a statement. Therefore, the ancients may have realized the concept of the cycle of life and death from the vigorous growth of all things in spring. In this way, it is not surprising that the custom of visiting graves has evolved into the practice of cold food (Qingming).

In the course of all these factors, the Qingming Festival was formed, and a number of important folk activities centered on it. An examination of the evolution of the Qingming Festival is obviously an important inspiration for us to better explore the traditions of the Qingming Festival today. This point, the author will be in the third part of this paper and then some discussion.

Second, the folk heritage of the "change" and "unchanged"

"One of the characteristics of Chinese folklore is that it is childish and simple, with a long history. Folklore matters in general often have long historical roots. Some household festivals and customs are often more than one or two thousand years old, which is relatively rare in the world." [8] (Chen Qinjian. Chinese Folklore. P94) At the same time, China has always been a centralized and unified multi-ethnic country, with frequent exchanges between ethnic groups, and the same folklore has been widely spread among different ethnic groups and regions. Traditional Chinese folklore, which has been passed down over such a long period of time and in such a vast space, will naturally undergo various evolutions in the process of transmission. However, in the process of inevitable "change", folklore has a very strong "unchanging" component, reflecting relative stability. During the Kuomintang period, the "New Life Movement" was once advocated, trying to abolish the old calendar New Year and asking the whole country to celebrate the New Year on the solar calendar, but this policy was not accepted because it violated the law of folklore transmission. There is a very famous couplet that can illustrate the psychology of the people at that time, namely: "Equal rights for men and women, the public says the public is justified, the mother-in-law says the mother-in-law is justified; the yin and yang are in harmony with the calendar, you live your year, I live my year." It can be seen that any policy that violates the laws of folklore transmission is very difficult to be implemented. Even if we rely on political coercion to get a momentary implementation, once the coercion is removed, as long as there is a suitable soil, the prohibited folklore will "come back".

This is what happened during the evolution of the Qingming Festival. As a traditional national holiday, Qingming Festival is not only a festival for people to pay tribute to their ancestors and remember them, but also a festival for hiking and trekking, getting close to nature and realizing the new life. The poet Du Fu wrote in one of his "Absolute Sentences": "When I look back, I see the flags after trekking on the riverside," which is an illustration of the fact that Qingming Festival is a festival of sweeping and trekking in parallel. During the reign of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty, the court thought that people playing and partying after sweeping the graves would turn a day of sorrow and grief into a day of joy, and that it would be "sad to go and happy to come back" and "crying and laughing for no reason at all", and so it issued an edict to forbid the people from going on joyful picnics after sweeping the graves. However, after this edict was issued, instead of curbing the custom of folk picnicking during the Qingming Festival, the custom was strengthened. Thus, during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, the imperial court had to issue another edict to lift the ban, but at the same time, it was more strictly stipulated that no food and drink should be allowed after sweeping the graves. From this incident, it can be seen that as long as there is a soil for survival, a specific folk custom will not easily disappear because of external forces.

Specifically, why the Qingming Festival tomb-sweeping and trekking on the two seemingly contradictory customs but can **** on the issue of survival, we can see that there are several reasons that can not be ignored. First of all, because the "Qingming" is the evolution of the ancient "spring custom", and "spring tour" is an important part of the old "spring custom". Spring tour" is an important part of the old "spring custom", people around the Qingming trekking excursion is the inheritance of this ancient custom. More importantly, before and after the Qingming grass and trees back to green, everything is produced, spring is bright and warm, in such a background, people for the spring tour is also should be the "unity of man and nature" of the laws of nature, so that the hibernation of the winter of the body and mind to be relieved. It can be seen that the Qingming Festival spring trekking custom implies the law of folklore inheritance, and even today, this law is still playing a role. Now, "there are some schools open spring vacation two or three days, generally always choose a day to go to the spring tour. Nowadays, the day of spring trip is usually not a dead rule, always in the lunar calendar in March and April, but most of them still choose to go on the traditional day of March 3rd. And this choice intentionally or unintentionally catered to the time guidelines of traditional festivals, spring tour is actually the evolution of the traditional customs of the third of March, and the third of March is derived from the even older spring and autumn one of the two major seasonal customs of spring customs, spring tour, that is the ancient spring customs in today's echo." [9] (Chen Qinjian. Chinese Folklore. P82)

Of course, although there is a very stable aspect of folklore in the process of inheritance, as mentioned above, due to the huge span of time and space, as well as the constant changes in social factors, folklore is bound to undergo certain changes in the process of inheritance. More importantly, 'China has had a tradition of changing customs since ancient times.' Du Fu had the ideal of 'to the king Yao and Shun, and then to make the customs simple', and Wang Anshi, in his 'Customs', believed that the important thing for 'the sages' was to 'make peace and benefit for the people', and that the importance of making peace and benefit It is not about it, but about correcting the customs. Therefore, the change of customs, moving and contaminating the people's aspirations, is related to the prosperity and decline of the people, and should not be taken care of.'" [10] (Cheng Qiang. Folk elves full of wisdom - Research on Folk Culture and Folk Literature.P125) In this sense, respecting the law of folklore inheritance and folk traditions does not mean that conscious changes can not be made to folklore, on the contrary, there are indeed many dregs in our traditional folklore, and these dregs should be treated positively and guided to overcome their feudalism and fascism. To be guided, to overcome the bad aspects of its feudal superstition and wastefulness, so that folklore on a healthy path beneficial to people's lives. For example, the Qingming Festival is traditionally a private festival because the ancient state form of our country was a homogeneous structure of family and state, and most of the successive regimes advocated the "rule of the world by filial piety", so private festivals were actually conducive to the unity of the country. This point is not outdated today, but at the same time, "it is also desirable to turn the Qingming Festival into a festival of patriotism and traditional education to honor the martyrs who have sacrificed their lives for the people in various periods of history, and to give new content to the old festival customs." [11] (Ching Ming Festival). [11] (Cheng Qiang. Folk Elves Full of Wisdom--Research on Folk Culture and Folk Literature . P125)

So, in a comprehensive view, the inheritance of folklore is the result of the combined effect of various factors in the society, and it is impossible for any party to unilaterally decide the development direction of folklore inheritance. The correct approach should be to fully respect the premise of folklore tradition, the formation and development of folklore to carry out a comprehensive examination of the factors, clarify the thinking, the respect should be respected, and the anachronisms will be appropriate guidance.

Third, the humanistic connotation of folk heritage

Traditional festivals such as Qingming are "the first people in a specific living environment, the life of the universe and the human body life precepts of the interweaving of the spiritual enlightenment and cultural performances; it is the joint point of the cultural life cycle of the regional ethnic groups and the life of the national culture - an important symbol of the spirit of the nation. -It is an important symbol of national spirit. It is the archetype of thinking and the way of doing that has been handed down from generation to generation in different fields of human beings. It has the cultural power to regulate the behavior of the succeeding society and to appeal to the mind. In reality, it communicates the continuity and homogeneity between generations, between one historical stage and another through festival carriers in tangible physical form and intangible ideological representation, constituting a cultural code for a society to create and recreate itself, and laying the cornerstone for the orderly development of mankind and the enhancement of the cohesion of the modern nation." [12] (Chen Qinjian. Chinese Folklore. P176) This passage comprehensively points out the important role of traditional festivals for China and the nation as a whole, which is in the process of modernization. There are many stereotypical views in society that modernization means seeking newness and innovation, that everything is new and good, and that traditional things should be discarded. This viewpoint precisely ignores the organic connection between traditional folklore and modernization. Therefore, the key to the problem is not how to say goodbye to the "old", but rather to discover what irreplaceable roles the so-called "old" is playing in the new environment, and how to promote the "old". It is to discover what irreplaceable role the so-called "old" is playing in the new context, and to discover how the "old" can be made to better contribute to the development of the "new". Obviously, it is not possible to make this clear in this paper, so I intend to place the focus of the discussion on a smaller scale, i.e., to use the passage quoted above as an introduction to the discussion of the cultural significance of folklore inheritance.

Thirty years after the reform and opening up, the rise of consumer culture has gradually become rampant, and under the vulgarized understanding of the development of economic development, all things external to development and economy have become dispensable, not to mention folklore, which is defined as the "lower culture". The rich traditional culture, folk rituals and traditional festivals have been forgotten with indifference, while the atmosphere of Christmas and Valentine's Day in the West has gradually intensified to the extent that it affects middle-aged and old-aged people other than the youth. According to the definition of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, "Intangible cultural heritage refers to the social practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills and related tools, objects, artifacts and cultural spaces that are recognized by communities and, in some cases, by individuals as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage is transmitted from generation to generation and is constantly recreated as communities and groups adapt to their surroundings and interact with nature and history, providing these communities and groups with a continuing sense of identity and thus increasing respect for cultural diversity and human creativity." [13] (Census Workbook for China's Ethnic and Folk Culture Protection Project) In my opinion, the importance of the widely quoted definition lies not in the definition of the specific form of ICH, but in its excavation of the significance of ICH, i.e., that ICH provides communities and groups with a continuous sense of identity, thereby increasing respect for cultural diversity and human creativity. In a broader sense, not only intangible cultural heritage, but also folk culture as a whole probably plays such a role, doesn't it? Under the impact of strong Western culture, the dignity of national culture and the cultural sovereignty of the country have been seriously challenged, and it has become urgent to build a new national sentiment, national dignity and national cultural identity. In this sense, the protection of national folk cultural heritage, the protection of these unique ways of life and cultural forms of the nation is of great significance in strengthening the national cultural identity. In this sense, the state will Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, these traditional festivals into the national legal holidays, has an extremely important role.

From the occurrence and inheritance of traditional folklore, the reason why it has lasted for thousands of years is that traditional folklore has been adapted to the needs of people's daily life. Take the custom of trekking in the Qingming Festival mentioned in this article as an example, the original purpose of this custom is to promote the physical and mental health of people, so that the rhythm of human life can conform to the changes in the laws of nature. In the same way, people have chosen specific folklore in a long time of time and space transition, the original intention and the real importance of these festivals and customs to make people's lives more healthy and colorful. "The original and most fundamental purpose of all kinds of folklore, including the festivals of the year, is in fact to adjust the relationship between human beings and nature, with society, and among people, and in the final analysis, to adjust the relationship between each person and the objective world outside of him or herself, so as to make the life more secure, and live better." [13] (Cheng Qiang). [13] (Cheng Qiang. Folk Elves Full of Wisdom--Research on Folk Culture and Folk Literature. P123) It is in this sense that the practical significance of folklore inheritance has been highlighted and the cultural connotation of folklore inheritance has been better implemented. Perhaps, we should ask again: what is folklore in the end. The answer is: "Folklore is, in the final analysis, 'human folklore'." [14] (Chen Qinjian. Chinese Folklore. P29)

(About 5,800 words in full)

Bibliography:

[1] Chen Qinjian. Chinese Folklore [M]. Shanghai: East China Normal University Publishing House, 2007.8

[2] Cheng, Qiang. Folklore Culture and Folk Literature Research [M]. Guangxi: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2006.11

[3] Liliang Zhang Linlin. Festivals [M]. Chongqing. Chongqing Publishing House, 2006.1

[4] Zhu Ninghong. Chinese Folklore and Customs (Volume III) - Festivals and Entertainment [Z]. Beijing: China Materials Publishing House, 2005.12

[5] National Center for the Protection of Ethnic and Folk Cultures in China. National Center for Ethnic and Folk Culture Protection Project of China. Beijing. Culture and Art Publishing House, 2005.5

[5] National Center for Ethnic and Folk Culture Protection Project of China.