What are the forms of sports and entertainment in ancient China?

What are the forms of sports and entertainment in ancient China?

Since the Spring and Autumn Period, the sports activities of the ruling class have undergone two major changes. First of all, some forms of social education have gradually broken through the shackles of ethics and morality, and there has been a trend of entertainment; Secondly, some military training projects gradually separated from military training and developed in the direction of competition and performance. During the Qin and Han dynasties, there were government agencies specializing in the management of court and folk music and dance, which laid the foundation for the management of music and dance and court entertainment activities in later generations.

During the Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties, leisure and entertainment activities developed. Because of frequent wars, such activities are mainly confined to the eating, drinking and having fun of the ruling class. Sui Dynasty was a period of high development of feudal society in China. The development of social economy provides a solid material foundation for the rapid development of culture, and the whole social life is more active. Various recreational activities, such as clapping hands, cuju, sumo wrestling, board games, dancing and folk festivals, such as watching lanterns in the Lantern Festival, tug-of-war in spring, cold swings, dragon boat races, climbing Chongyang Mountain, and sports activities for women and children are widely carried out at all levels. As a primitive cultural and recreational activity, dance is the source of our present games, competitive sports and leisure entertainment.

After the Song Dynasty, the commodity economy became more active, the urban population became more active, and the urban population increased greatly, which promoted the rise of civic culture. In the city, there are some artists and places for citizens to entertain, such as rap, juggling, puppet shows and dancing. Amateur folk sports groups appeared, formulated various sports technical standards and organized sports performance competitions, which made the organized sports competitions once confined to the court and the army begin to go folk.

In ancient times, sports and entertainment can not only strengthen the body and relax the body and mind, but also produce cadres.

Text/Yan Jianhuai

Northerners like to dance yangko in the Spring Festival, while southerners prefer to race dragon boats in the Dragon Boat Festival. However, both yangko and dragon boat races were not initiated by modern people, but originated from ancient sacrificial activities. Sichuanese like to play mahjong, which is called "bloody battle to the end". Four people compete for hegemony. It is said that mahjong also originated from the "horse hanging" invented by the ancients. Football, which is popular all over the world, originated from Cuju, an ancient fitness sport in China. It can be seen that the Chinese ancestors were not only hardworking and kind, but also smart and intelligent, and made contributions to the world's "four great inventions" and created many games for the world.

In ancient times, people had to get up early because of hunger and were busy in the dark, but after farming and hunting, they would also take time off, have fun in suffering and play various games, and digging soil was one of them. The soil is made of wood, with a wide front and a narrow back. It's like a shoe, more than a foot long and about three inches wide. The game is to put yourself on the ground, take thirty or forty steps back, and hit the ground with the soil in your hand. If you hit it, you will win. Chong Wang, in general? 6? Yizeng recorded the story of "Yao Min digging soil". When we talked about Yao Di, the world was at peace and the people lived and worked in peace. A 50-year-old man smashed dirt in the middle of the road, and the audience on the side sincerely lamented: "Yao Di really has boundless merits!" Who knows, the elder disdainfully said, "I work at sunrise, rest at sunset, dig wells and drink, plow fields and eat, and enjoy myself." What does it have to do with the virtue of Emperor Yao? " What a talker.

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the princes competed for hegemony and advocated the samurai spirit of being good at riding and shooting, and the throwing pot characterized by competitive shooting became a popular game. Pot throwing stems from etiquette. Zheng Xuan's "Book of Rites Justice" said: "Those who throw pots, the host and guest drink, talk about talent and ceremony." At that time, adult men were proud of being good at shooting, and princes gathered, often inviting guests to shoot arrows. Later, some people did not know how to shoot an arrow, so they had to shoot an arrow with a hip flask. So hip-throwing slowly developed into a banquet game. When throwing a pot, the host and guest sit opposite each other, and the hip flask is used as a vessel. People are a few feet away from the pot, and the arrow that breaks the arrow wins. Zuo Qiuming's Zuo Zhuan? 6? According to records, in the twelfth year, when Jin ascended the throne, the Zhou royal family and governors came to congratulate him, and Jin and the game threw pots. In the process of throwing pots, they quarreled for the first place of the governor, and the result ended in discord. Therefore, the game of the imperial court is sometimes not just a game, but often a politics.

Literati don't like to compete for physical strength. They are elegant, like twists and turns, graceful and tactful, so they have poetic cultivation. Meditation was originally a ceremony to eliminate disasters and pray for blessings. At the beginning of the third month of the lunar calendar, people flocked to play underground and prayed for disaster relief. Later, Xiuzuo developed into a classic paradigm of literati's elegant collection, especially favored by scholars in Wei and Jin Dynasties. On March 3rd, the 9th year of Yonghe in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (353), Wang Xizhi, Sun Chuo, Xie An and other 40 celebrities gathered for a banquet in Lanting, Huiji County (now Shaoxing). Celebrities sit in a row by the winding stream and put down their glasses along the stream. Whoever stays in front of the glasses has to write poems. If you can't write poetry, you will be fined three cups. This is a play in a show called Running Water. Celebrities come forth in large numbers, long and salty, and everyone returns happily. Finally, 37 poems created on the spot were edited into "Poems of Lanting", which was very popular for some time. Wang Xizhi's Preface to the Lanting Pavilion, which was created and written for this great event, is unique in literary talent and has become a peerless treasure in the history of China literature and calligraphy.

Cuju was probably the most popular entertainment in the Tang and Song Dynasties. According to the literature, an inflatable ball was used at that time, not a ball stuffed with hair. Wang Yue said, "On the two floors in front of the temple, the cold food palace ladies play football." Du Fu also said, "Ten years?" Will be far away, Wan Li waving customs with ",thus showing the popularity of Cuju, can be called national entertainment. Gao Qiu once succeeded in cuju in Song Dynasty. According to "Swing Story", Gao Qiu is a petty official, surnamed Xu. On one occasion, Wang Shen asked Gao Qiu to send something to Duan Wangfu. It happened that Duan Wangfu was playing cuju, and Duan Wangfu invited Gao Qiu to play together. Gao Qiu is a master of cuju. As soon as he stretched his legs, he kicked a room full of applause, which made Duan Wang sit up and take notice, and then he treated him as a bosom friend. Later, Duan Wang succeeded to the throne in his capacity, so Gao Qiu was promoted to Qiu. This shows that games can not only keep fit, but also relax and train cadres.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, animal games such as cockfighting and cricket fighting became popular in the government and the people. In the Ming Dynasty, there even appeared a kind of non-governmental organization specialized in cockfighting activities: "Cockfighting Society". Zhang Dai's Tao Anmeng said: "There is a good cockfighting room in the apocalypse, and there is a cockfighting club at the foot of Longshan." Zhu Zhanji, Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty, was obsessed with cricket fighting since childhood. After he ascended the throne, he took collecting crickets as a political task, which made the people unbearable and cursed him as the "son of heaven". The Qing dynasty conquered the Han nationality by force, and how to inherit the martial spirit became an important matter for the rulers. To this end, Kangxi opened the Mulan paddock in Jehol and led the princes and the Eight Banners to hunt. Between Kanggan and Kanggan, the imperial court held one or two large-scale hunting activities every year, which were grand and enthusiastic, just like a martial arts exhibition and a military parade. However, the nomadic people who entered the Central Plains could not resist the reverse osmosis of Chinese culture after all. Those princes and nobles finally abandoned their proud riding and shooting skills and became addicted to Qin chess, calligraphy and painting, and Han Confucianism. Hunting gradually left only the form and became entertainment. 1860, when the British and French allied forces invaded China, the excuse that Emperor Xianfeng fled the capital turned out to be "Mulan hunting", which had nothing to do with Wan Li, making people feel ridiculous.

Of course, the game that spans thousands of years is far more than the above sporadic points, and it is enough to describe it with a lot of words. At the same time, although games are related to politics and interests, they are mostly for fitness and entertainment. In the long history of loneliness, games have contributed greatly to people's healthy body and happy mood.