Folklore Activities of A-Ma Temple Festivals

According to traditional customs, the annual temple fair of A-Ma Temple in Meizhou is generally divided into three periods: First, during the Lantern Festival. From the eighth to the twenty-ninth day of the first month of the lunar calendar is the folk festival of the Shangyuan Festival, during which people remember and give thanks to the goddess A-Ma Zu and hold grand temple fairs to which they invite their relatives and friends. The event culminates in the parade of A-Ma's golden body around the island on the 29th day of the first month. Second, around the anniversary of A-Ma's birth. 3-5 days before and after the 23rd day of the third month of the lunar calendar, the temple fair culminates in a grand A-Ma Ceremony held at the Ancestral Temple. Third, around the anniversary of A-Ma's ascension to heaven for 3-5 days, the temple fair culminates in the A-Ma's fall festival held at the Ancestral Temple of A-Ma. The traditional temple fair, which takes place three times a year, has become a grand cultural festival for the people of Meizhou.

The main contents of the A-Ma Temple Fair in Meizhou include drama, song and dance performances, makeup frame treading on the street, hoisting streamers and hanging lanterns, martial arts juggling, and parades of the gods, and so on.

Acting for the gods Mazu's hometown is a famous "hometown of opera". Ancient Putu Xian opera, puppet show is the main program of the temple activities. During the temple fair, more than a dozen troupes perform in turn, some of which compete against each other in stage performances and competitions.

The people on the island invite their friends and relatives to watch the temple fair, see the opera, and eat the opera feast (local custom, also known as "eating opera wine.") When the opera is performed, relatives and friends are invited to watch the opera. In the performance of the community theater, invited friends and relatives to gather, watch the play get-together feast). The repertoire of the show includes "The Legend of Mazu", "Yuehlian Saving Mother" and other good-intentioned content, as well as "Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin", "Journey to the West" and other serialized plays, or the more popular Putu Xian Opera repertoire.

Song and dance performances are mainly traditional mountain songs, fishing songs and rich folk dances, dragon dance, lion dance, stilts, soap dance, nine carp dance, nine lotus lamp, brown sedan chair dance, hairpin sedan chair, playing flower drums, and other folk dance team's wonderful performance is breathtaking. Especially the traditional temple fair to make the field has long been lost classical folk dance Soap Li dance, hairpin sedan chair, nine carp dance, etc. preserved intact, is a miracle of folk art heritage.