Report on the visit to the "Jiao-festival" activities

The "Jiao-festival" is a Taoist ritual of honoring the heavens and praying for blessings. The purpose of this study tour is to appreciate the unique charm of the Taoist "Jiao-festival" rituals, to understand these traditional religious activities, to learn about the rich traditional folk culture of Chinese Taoism for thousands of years, and to enrich the knowledge of my own national education.

On November 24, 2017, I had the honor to visit the "Jiao-festival" in the waterfront area of Kennedy Town, Hong Kong Island, China. I would like to talk about the following aspects of this event:

I. The significance of the Bun Festival

First of all, what is the Bun Festival? I believe there are many young people like me, at first heard the word is also very rare, do not know what it is. Through the access to information to understand a two:

"Luo Tian Dajiao" for the Taoist "Jiaojiao ritual" in an extremely grand ritual activities, the so-called "Jiaojiao" that is! The so-called "Jiao-festival" is a Taoist ritual. "The Jiao-festival is also the largest of the common folk festivals, encompassing heaven and earth, and the deepest in meaning - it can harmonize the position of the stars, pray for blessings and protection of the people, peace and prosperity of the country, and eliminate disasters and seek blessings; The longest period of the festival - up to 79 days.

"Luo Tian Dajiao" set up nine altars to worship the gods of heaven and earth, divided into the upper, middle and lower three altars. The upper three altars are called Pudian, which is worshiped by the emperor, sacrificing 3,600 deities; the middle three altars are Zhoutian, which is worshiped by the principal officials and noblemen, with 2,400 deities; and the lower three are Luotian, which is worshiped by the people, with 1,200 deities.

Luo Tianjiao not only ceremonial rituals, Biao long, Pudu area to cover the sky with five-color cloth, whether inside the altar or outside the field are very grand and solemn, the cost of manpower, material resources beyond the general Biao ceremony more than ten times, plus Putian and the emperor must be sacrificed, the era of feudalism, the folk have little ability to build this Biao. After the Tang Dynasty, many kings in the past dynasties, whenever there is a major event or catastrophe, are called to invite Taoist priests in the palace or the famous mountains and palaces set up altars to build the Jiao-festival. But after the Qing Dynasty, this kind of large-scale Taoist Jiaojiao activities are rare. It is no wonder that most of us young people ask about this so-called, I'm afraid that even many older elders if they have never known it!

Second, "Luo Tianjiao" scene scene

This time to catch the Hong Kong every ten years to hold a "Luo Tianjiao", really a rare opportunity to see the world. The Jiao-festival held in Hong Kong in November this year is to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of Hong Kong and the 20th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to the motherland, and also to pray for the smooth sailing of Hong Kong, social harmony, the motherland's prosperity and strength, and world peace. The event is open to the public free of charge for more than a week, and aims to deepen the understanding of the people of Hong Kong and China, as well as the rest of the world, of Taoist and Chinese cultures through the display of traditional Taoist rituals, and distinctive traditional folk arts and customs.

The "Jiao-festival" of Taoism blessing event, the national government departments and related organizations and departments of the strong support, is still organized by the Hong Kong Taoist Association. 22 November in Hong Kong Kennedy Town City, the grand opening of the waterfront area of the West Road, this year's Ceremony "Jiao-festival

(1) Bun Festival Area

At the opening ceremony of the Bun Festival, more than 1,000 masters and Taoist priests from home and abroad perform the traditional "Sacrifice to Heaven? Three on the table" ceremony, dozens of Taoist masters wearing different color robes gathered in front of the altar, the masters in the chanting service, accompanied by beautiful Taoist music dance, but also constantly changing formation, there are a variety of Yubu and step on the astral bucket. For the people of the people and the people praying for blessings, and line three kneeling nine kowtow worship ritual, and finally lined up on as high as 8.5 meters of the "Sanqing Hall" incense and wishes.

I also visited the different halls set up a variety of altars such as: in the Dala Palace, Doo Buk Hall, Three Guan Hall, the Virgin Mary Hall, five old halls, the Queen Mother of the West Hall, and so on, many of the building of the temple. There is also a main shrine altar, Qingxuan altar for the various scripture groups to take turns to perform the law.

The main ceremonies are: opening the altar, open the list, the invitation of the Holy wish will be, ritual bucket, on the table, back to the Holy and so on. The purpose of the rituals is for national peace and security, confession of sins, thank you, pray for longevity and longevity of life, pull the ghosts to recommend ancestor and so on. The modern Jiao-festival time is also quite long, usually held three days, five days, seven days, etc., every day the rituals are different, so the content is very rich.

According to the Taoist custom, the Song dynasty Jiao-festival enshrined the gods have "two thousand and four hundredths", Putian Jiao-festival set the gods "three thousand and six hundredths". These two kinds of Jiaojiao only "court repair, or ministers for the country is also allowed to repair, the common people are not allowed to repair".

According to the provisions of the Taoist scriptures, Pudian Bun should be enshrined 3600 Bun (i.e., God), Zhou Tian Bun enshrined 2400 Bun, Luo Tian Bun enshrined 1200 Bun. Three kinds of Jiaojiao practice, the scale is different, but its purpose is, a protection of the country and the people, the second life extension of the death, three disaster avoidance, four pray for blessings and thank you. In addition, there are also gold Jiaojiao, jade Jiaojiao, yellow Jiaojiao and other large-scale Taoist ceremonies.

In addition to a variety of exciting demonstrations of the Bun Festival, the most eye-catching part of the Bun Festival is the five-meter-long giant rice dragon. It is said to be the largest rice dragon in Hong Kong, made of white rice piled up and decorated with gold and silver coins as dragon scales, which symbolizes the elimination of calamities and the descending of blessings. This is a glittering and glittering scene, looking at all the joyful and happy.

Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Province of Taoism often held Jiao-festival, pray for peace Jiao-festival, according to its content, is the ground

(2) Chinese culture exhibition area

teach the millennium deep into the daily life of the Chinese people's clothing, food, housing, and transportation, and the Chinese culture is inextricably linked. There are a number of Chinese cultural activities in this Bun Festival, *** divided into three parts: firstly, the exhibition area of traditional Chinese culture; secondly, the display of Chinese folk customs and craft works; and thirdly, the prayer for blessings, wishing for world peace and the prosperity of Hong Kong.

The display and dissemination of traditional Chinese culture is the biggest highlight of the Jiao-festival. At the scene you can see the traditional tie work, dragon and lion performance, Taoist music and other traditional folk art and customs, ancient books and Kunming embroidery display, statue carving craft demonstration and sticking gold foil workshop, war and peace painting exhibition, Fuzhou Quanzhou wire puppet show, Fujian tea culture exhibition area ...... and so on also set up a traditional Chinese medicine exhibition booths, free of charge for tourists! The exhibition also set up TCM booths to provide free medical consultation for visitors. Visible venue is not only grand and wonderful, but also pay close attention to safety, convenient measures, so attracted two or three thousand people day tour volume.

The most attractive part of the Chinese culture exhibition area is Taoist music and folk art. Taoist music, is one of the Chinese religious music. It is an indispensable element of Taoist rituals, which has the ability to accentuate and render the religious atmosphere and enhance the believers' yearning for the world of the immortals and their reverence for them. It also absorbed the essence of ancient Chinese court music and traditional folk music, infiltrated the characteristics of Taoist beliefs, and formed the unique artistic style of Taoist music, which is an important part of Chinese traditional music. It was the first time that I listened to and watched Taoist music in a real Taoist puja, and I was very excited and mesmerized by this beautiful and immortal music. The Chinese national art can be said to be beautiful and wonderful!

Four thoughts and summarize

? Through this "Jiao-festival" watching and investigation, I y feel the deep heritage of Chinese traditional culture. Those exquisite and rich Chinese culture are all with deep cultural connotation, three words are not enough to say. Take Taoism alone, it is a religion with a long history and deep influence on Chinese culture. For thousands of years, China has always believed in the Taoist spirit of benevolence, morality, respect, modesty, filial piety and etiquette, which is y rooted in Chinese society, and which continues to improve our social atmosphere and cultivate our moral qualities, so it can be said that Taoism has played an extremely important role in our civilization and etiquette. The religious traditional rituals and performing arts of Taoism are cultural treasures. In Hong Kong, an international city with a developed economy and prosperous business, Taoist rituals and customs have been passed down from generation to generation, forming a unique local culture. These cultural traditions deserve to be passed on and preserved by all, and we should learn from the essence of them to better ourselves for the formation of a good and civilized social climate!