What is the purpose of carrying a flag in Chaoshan?

Recently in recent years in a variety of short video platforms appeared a lot of a group of dressed in a variety of gorgeous costumes, the head with a phoenix crown of beautiful girls carrying a flag, the flag embroidered with a variety of patterns and slogans as if in what to participate in the activities of the parade of the video is very hot, on the platform of the popularity of the big ones. These videos are usually titled with the traditional culture and customs of Chaoshan, and most of the authors don't provide detailed explanations under the works. In addition to the Chaoshan own people can understand, foreign friends look confused, so that many netizens mistakenly think it is back to the mother's home and marriage.

The culture of Chaoshan is limited to the Chaoshan area, and friends from outside the area can really say that they know very little about the customs and culture of Chaoshan, which is unfamiliar and full of curiosity. A lot of foreign friends said they want to understand the culture and customs of the Chaoshan region but have not known where to learn. At the same time, some netizens questioned whether the traditional culture of the Chaoshan people is to carry a flag and walk the streets all day long? Don't Chaoshan girls need to study and work? 365 days a year in the festival? Some people also jokingly refer to flag-carrying as kong-carrying. As a local Chaoshan people today to give you a popularization of the origin of flag-carrying activities in the Chaoshan region in the end is a what kind of custom, what is the meaning.

The origin of the flag-carrying activity has to do with the fact that the Chaoshan people "pay respect to the masters", and the "masters" referred to here are not government officials or local gentry. In Chaoshan people, the term "lao shi" refers to the guardian god of each village or hamlet, national heroes or people who have made great contributions to the local community after their deaths. In order to commemorate other great achievements, the local people will fund the construction of a temple to honor them with a golden body. The Chaoshan people usually call these temples "Old Master's Palace". The Chaoshan area is a place where many gods are worshipped. There is no specific god in Chaoshan, "Lao Lao" is just a collective name for all gods, including some female gods. In the rural areas of Chaoshan, villages and hamlets are organized into clusters of family names. There are at least one or two lao lao palaces in each village or walled village, as many as four or five or even more, and each lao lao palace seldom enshrines a lao lao alone, but mostly one lao lao palace enshrines all kinds of lao lao, each lao lao has its own job, and each one performs its own duty, guarding the countryside and preserving the peace and quiet of the area. Each "master" has his or her own duties, guarding the countryside and keeping the peace of the countryside. It can also be understood that the "Master Palace" is a multi-functional office hall, the shrine of the "Master" in charge of the village's three bad six Wang, for the villagers to eliminate disasters and blessings.

The most common "lords" enshrined in the "lords' palace" are, for example, Mazu, Pearl Queen (Mazu in the Chaoshan area), Buddha (Xuan Tian God), Chenghuang, Guandi, Bogong (Lord Fude), Bao Sheng Da Di, Long Mei, Shuang Zhong Sheng Wang (Xu Yuan, Zhang Pu), and Shuang Zhong Sheng Wang (Xu Yuan, Zhang Pu), and the "Lianzhong" (Zhang Pu), which is a kind of "lords". (Xu Yuan and Zhang Pu), the Sage King of Mukeng (Jie Zi Tui), the Sage of Wind and Rain, the Ancestor of Song Dafeng, the Queen of Jisheng, and the King of Sanshan, etc., all of which, whether ranked in the Immortal Classes or as local deities, are collectively referred to as "lao sha" (masters). Personally, I believe that the Chaoshan "Master" should be a part of the Taoist branch. Meanwhile, Chaoshan is a very diversified and inclusive place. After thousands of years of change and baptism, and later by the influence of Buddhist culture, after a long evolution and integration and the formation of the Chaoshan region, this kind of "Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism" is not divided into a family *** sacrifice a temple, the realization of the "Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism," the peace **** at the strange phenomenon. The peculiar phenomenon. Although the master of this faith from the Tao, Buddha, but the master and Buddha, the Tao of the difference is that the master never accept the religious, but also do not teach the Tao; each village has their own belief in the master, the village of the master only to provide the villagers of the village to worship.

"Yinglaozhao (welcoming laozhao)" is similar to the temple fair in the north. Most of them are concentrated in the first month of the year, during February. Each village or village has a specific day or the head of the clan chooses an auspicious day. The "Master" statue, which is usually enshrined in the "Master's Palace", is re-dressed and invited down to the temple in a palanquin to invite the Master out of the Palace, and placed in the ancestral hall of the village or in the ash-cheng (plaza) to temporarily build the "Master's shed". "During the parade, a worship ceremony is held at the shrine (altar) of the master, commonly known as the worship of the master. On this day, every family will bring offerings such as three animals, fruits, and Chaoshan 9 to worship the master in front of the hut. At the same time, there is also a performance of the traditional Teochew Opera, which is called "playing the fairy" by the Teochew people. After the worship ceremony, the village youths carry the statue of "Laozi" in an eight-carried sedan chair to every place in the village according to a pre-planned route. Villagers will set up incense burners in front of their houses and wait for the parade to pass by their houses, setting off firecrackers and burning incense to show their welcome to the Master. The significance of the "Ying Lama" is to patrol the territory and pacify the people, praying for peace and prosperity in the new year; in fact, it is a New Year's blessing puja. After the parade is over, the parade team will choose an auspicious time to carry the statue of the god back to the temple and put it in place, and the whole event will be considered to be successfully completed. Although the Chaoshan people all speak Chaoshanese, but there are differences in the regional dialects "Yinglaozhi" is called "Yinglaozhi" in some places, although the name is different, but the meaning is the same.

Ancestors' parades are relatively rare, as they usually involve the preparation of offerings to the ancestral halls, and only a few villages have the custom of inviting ancestors to go on a parade when they are worshipping them. Most of the ancestors of these villages are meritorious ministers and national heroes, and they are only qualified to go on parade.

The traditional folkloric parade activities in Chaoshan, in addition to riding the standard flag in the procession of the old man. There are also young and strong people with eight carries sedan chair carrying the statue of the lord, sounding the gong to open the way, the card player (avoidance, silence), honor guards, Chaoshan big gongs and drums team, Ying song and dance, flower basket team, Buma dance, Teochew characters, floats, dragon dance, lion dance and other teams composed of. At the end of the procession is the oldest person over 60 years old (clan elder) wearing a Tang suit. The flag is just one of the flags: the five-front flag, the wedding flag (carried by the groom who just got married last year), and the new-born flag (carried by the father who just gave birth to a child last year). The roles in the parade are basically played by the villagers of the village, and the parade consists of hundreds or thousands of people. The minimum age of the team of five, six-year-old child maximum eight, ninety years old, old, young and young across several generations **** with the participation of the event. The whole team stretches for several kilometers of the vast parade throughout the village streets and alleys, while parading while performing programs. In between the parade, there are traditional Teochew Opera performances and Tiezhi Puppet Show, which is called "Smoking Monkey" or "Paper Shadow Making" by the Chaoshan people. As the Chaoshan region is very wide and there may be some differences in the size of the population of each village, the composition of the parade is based on the strength of each village, and each place has its own characteristics. Although the procession is different but still the ceremony is still similar.

"Ying Laozi" parade time why most of them are concentrated in the first month of the year to February held. In the lunar calendar on the 24th day of the twelfth month, the master will go to heaven to report his duties, to the fourth day of the first month of the old man fell to heaven. After the fourth day of the first month of the lunar calendar, all over Chaoshan, they start to choose an auspicious day to welcome the Holy Spirit to go on a tour, praying for the prosperity of the country and the people in the new year, and for a good wind and rain. Some villages hold the parade every year; some villages have a small celebration (only worship, no parade) every year and a big celebration every few years. Many netizens are very curious about why the Chaoshan people have endless festivals and activities every day, but in fact, each village holds one or two festivals per year at most, and some villages hold them once every three or five years, and even some villages hold them once every ten or twelve years. Chaoshan is a region which includes Shantou, Chaozhou and Jieyang. The three cities add up to thousands of villages, if each village is organized once a year, there are thousands of activities every year, so it is easy to make people think that the Chaoshan people are celebrating the festival every day.

Many people think that the Chaoshan people are very feudal and superstitious, and that they worship all day long, from morning to night. In fact, this is not a feudal superstition, this is a letter, faith of faith, "Master" belongs to the local folk beliefs, but it is also a cultural heritage, carrying the memory of each and every Chaoshan people. In fact, there is a reason for Chaoshan people to worship the master: rather than worshiping the "master", it is better to worship the heroes, most of the "masters" in the Chaoshan population are actually famous for defending the country and resisting the foreign enemies in the history of the heroes. In the Manchu period is absolutely not allowed to have Han Chinese heroes. People are in order to avoid the Qing ban at the same time in order to highlight the majesty of the heroes, the heroes seem to be mythologized, draped in the mysterious veil of the gods, so that the heroes of the story is more rich in legend, in the community of word of mouth.

Since ancient times, the Chaoshan area has been a place of war, and people have suffered from wars all year round, so the Chaoshan people have been honoring and respecting the heroes; on the other hand, the Chaoshan area is located on the coast, and has always been subjected to typhoons, floods, and other natural disasters. The people of Chaoshan are usually engaged in fishing and farming, so it can be said that they rely on God to reward them for their livelihood. In case of typhoons, floods and other disasters, the crops they have worked so hard for half a year may not be harvested. When fishing at sea, the sea is very windy and rough, and every time they go out to sea for a few days or even a month or two, the women in the family can only pray silently at home that "the lord will bring the family back safely". Therefore, the lord has become the spiritual pillar of the disaster-prone Chaoshan people, and whenever they encounter any difficulties, they rely on the belief that "Lu has the lord's blessing to protect the family" (you have the lord's blessing, it's okay) to persevere and overcome the difficulties. Every year, the village sages take the lead in donating money to sponsor the parade. Some villages have set up charity centers to help the poor and needy. Nowadays, young people are working and studying outside the village; some of them have bought houses outside the village and may not even return to the village for Chinese New Year, so their contact with their hometowns has become less and less. However, whenever the village camps, no matter how busy they are, the lords will come back home to join in the fun, and they will also invite their relatives and friends to come to watch and dine with them, and they will give the offerings to their friends and relatives to "eat the peace" and get the joyous spirit. The "Master" has invariably become a bridge of communication between relatives and friends, and clansmen. The camping master can also be said to be a display of intangible heritage activities, parade team there are many projects have been listed as provincial and national intangible cultural heritage.

Every year, there are at least ten thousand parades in the Chaoshan area. The biggest parades are the Shuangzhong Cultural Festival in Chaoyang to commemorate Xu Yuan and Zhang Pu who died defending Suyang City during the An Shi Rebellion, the Chenghuang Temple Fair in Jieyang, the Qinglong Temple Fair in Chaozhou, the Drag God of Salt Stove in Chenghai, which is known as the most bloodthirsty camping master in Chaoshan, and the Song Dynasty Marshal of Gu Rao Town to commemorate Wen Tianxiang and all the surrendered and fallen generals who fought against the invasion of Yuan soldiers, which is held in the Chingming Festival, the Mid-Yuan Festival, and the Winter Solstice Festival, and is held in the whole town every year jointly by several villages, and rotated every ten years. Several villages jointly organize the event, which rotates every ten years. These events are not organized by one village, but by the whole town or street, and each village in the district will prepare some elaborate programs to participate.

You are welcome to come to Chaoshan to see and feel the charm of traditional culture of Chaoshan.