Brief introduction to the custom of ploughing festival

On the second day of the second lunar month, Hetai Town, Gaoyao City ushered in the annual "ploughing festival", which was more lively than the Spring Festival.

Tens of thousands of local people and foreign tourists held entertainment performances such as shooting, martial arts, lion dance, dragon dance, basketball and folk art in various villages in the town, celebrating the harvest of spring ploughing in various traditional forms, and praying for good weather, peace, prosperity and good luck in the new year. It is understood that Gaoyao Hetai "Agricultural Festival" has been officially listed as the first batch of representative works of intangible cultural heritage by Zhaoqing City and Gaoyao City, and is applying for provincial and national intangible cultural heritage.

The "Agricultural Opening Festival" in Hetai Town, Gaoyao City, also known as the "Spring Farming Festival", was formerly a blessing ceremony. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, every year after the Spring Festival, on the second day of the second lunar month, the villagers in Hetai held a blessing ceremony called "Adjust the crops to stay" to pray for good weather and good harvests in the farming season. After the founding of New China, in order to get rid of superstitions, the blessing ceremony was renamed "Tillage Festival", and some activities with feudal superstitions were removed, while some entertainment and sports activities such as lion dance martial arts performances, cultural performances and basketball games were added. Hetai "farming festival" has a history of more than 600 years.