The History and Culture of Pingyao Ancient City

The colorful boat is made of bamboo strips, wooden strips and colored silk, surrounded by satin, covered with wooden strips and satin.

During the performance, accompanied by drum music, one person plays a woman in a boat, with ribbons tied on her shoulders, sitting on the "boat" with her fake feet and walking like a boat.

The other man dressed as a boatman and paddled in front.

stilts

Made of two wooden sticks, stilts are generally 6 feet up and down, and the height is 1.2 feet.

The upper end of the wooden stick is horizontally provided with a pedal. During the performance, the actor's calf was tied to the top of the wooden stick, stepped on the board and walked around according to various dance steps.

Skilled people can jump over obstacles such as benches and tables, or they can fall eight forks and bend over.

Traditional contents include the legend of the white snake, the celebration of fixing pearls, the fox's unjust imprisonment, and the Tang Priest's scriptures.

After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), China increased the contents reflecting the real life, such as sending children to join the army, family planning, the story of the red lantern, and the relocation of Tiger Prison Mountain.

The stilt performances in Beicheng Village and Gankeng Village of this county are very famous.

Lift the pavilion

Fix the iron bar on the upper end of the lifting rod, decorate the surrounding of the lifting rod with various props such as lotus flowers and colorful clouds, and then fix three or four boys and girls who play various drama characters and fairy tales on the iron bar, and perform on the back of adult men.

There are more than 50 kinds of contents, including Monkey King Thrice Defeats the Skeleton Demon, Fu Guitu, Huoju, Broken Bridge, Rainbow Pass, Interpretation, Baihua Pavilion, Stealing Ganoderma lucidum, Xiahedong, Picking firewood, Sue accompanying maid, Double Mourning and Yellow River Array.

dragon lantern

Use bamboo, wood, cloth and other materials to make refined faucets, and then use bamboo rings to make a number of dragon joints. Use cloth to enclose the dragon body and tail which are more than 20 meters long, and draw the dragon forest and claws on them.

During the performance, one person supported the dragon head with a wooden pole, and a dozen people supported the dragon body and the dragon tail with wooden poles in sections. In front of him, a person plays with colored beads and fireballs to lead the way.

Accompanied by percussion and dancing the tap, the dragon body rolls and swings with the tap.

The performance forms include "playing with pearls with two dragons", "adjusting the four corners", "eight tunes", "snake shedding its skin" and "setting pearls".

The faucet has a built-in candle, which can be performed day and night.

When performing at night, the dragon lanterns are brightly lit and magnificent.

bamboo horse

It is made of bamboo skin or bamboo strips, covered with silk yarn and coated with pigment.

The bamboo horse is divided into two parts, the front part and the back part, which are respectively fixed on the front chest and the back waist of a boy aged 12.

Wearing many small copper bells.

Generally, bamboo and horse teams are played by 14 children, and 12 horses represent the Chinese zodiac. The first one is called the horse's head, which is conducted by Buddha dust in the drama performance, and the last one is the ponytail.

The rest of the performers held whips and ran like horses. With the bell ringing, only Malik Pentium was there.

At night, lanterns and candles are placed on bamboo horses, which is especially beautiful to perform.

The performance forms include snake molting, turning over, double octave, single octave, scissors, octave, Ma Zhu, headless, three-ring ear and so on.

Jiejiegao

On the surface, it is similar to a back stick, and the actual performance is more difficult.

The performers are mostly boys and girls around 7 years old. They dress up as all kinds of dramatic figures, stand on the shoulders of adult performers without any ties, lean on the children's knees on the back of the adults' heads, and stand hard, similar to acrobatic performances.

Adults perform to the rhythm of the music, and the children on their shoulders dance with them. It's really beautiful.

Journey to the west and crossing the sea by the Eight Immortals are the most popular dramas.

Diyangge

Yangko dances and sings. Musical instruments have two sides of waist and drum, a pair of cymbals, a pair of hairpin, two sides of gong and four sides of mouth scraping. When conditions permit, musical instruments can be added, and the number of players will increase accordingly.

A drummer is quick-thinking, eloquent and lyrical, and improvises auspicious and funny "four or six sentences" in Pingyao dialect.

Between sentences, all kinds of musical instruments suddenly struck together, and the intensive interlude was sonorous and pleasant.

Waist drummers are the core of the band. He is active in posture, dancing and walking in the team.

Other musicians both play and perform, and the form is free.

The traditional songs widely circulated in Diyang Song include Reading Five Classics, Ten Lamps, Wang's Mother and so on.

A bright/clear mirror hangs high-a fair and keen judgment.

During the reign of Kangxi, Song Zhongyuan, a native of Fancun, went to Pingyao City to see a doctor with a big umbrella on his back. He walked to the south of Loy village, and a man ran from behind in a panic. Song Zhongyuan recognized this man. He is a neighbor.

Dark clouds are gathering, lightning and thunder are thundering, and it's going to rain.

After a while, it really rained heavily.

Song Zhongyuan held up a big umbrella on his back and invited Wu Lianchi to go with him. Wu Lianchi quickly leaned down to borrow an umbrella to shelter from the rain.

Two people share joys and sorrows, help each other, and travel to Gaolin Village, talking and laughing.

The wind was so strong that Zhong Song was so tired that he sweated, took Song Zhongyuan's umbrella and went to the Kongjia Hotel outside the south gate.

At this time, the wind has stopped and the rain has cleared up.

Song Zhongyuan asked Wu Lianchi for an umbrella.

Not only did he not return Song Zhongyuan, but he also lied that the umbrella was his. They quarreled and gathered a large audience.

Without hesitation, he said, "The umbrella is mine!" Song Zhongyuan said, "The umbrella is mine!" Song and Wu grabbed the umbrella, and the audience couldn't tell whose umbrella it was. Watch them make so much noise until they get to Pingyao County.

Song Zhongyuan drummed, and Wang Jie, the magistrate of a county, rushed to the court. The plaintiff Song Zhongyuan stated what happened.

The defendant insisted that the umbrella was his.

Two people express their opinions, then the magistrate of a county Wang Jie, bad judgment.

After a short silence, Wang Jie suddenly slapped the gavel and said, "Naughty people! Shit is so big that the county government plays drums! I want to test the officer's wisdom and stupidity ... "Then I tore my umbrella into pieces, threw it into the hall and ordered him to leave the hall.

Song Zhongyuan, the plaintiff, came down from the class and burst into tears, while the defendant gloated at the delay.

Two people walked out of the county government and walked to Zhaobi South Street. Four officials kicked them out and took them back to the county government.

They knelt in the lobby again, and Wang Jie, the magistrate of a county, kindly decided that the umbrella belonged to Song Zhongyuan, the plaintiff, and the defendant was falsely accused of being late. He was in charge of forty boards, fined ten times and compensated the plaintiff for a new umbrella.

Afterwards, Song Zhongyuan sent a plaque to Xian, engraved with the words "mirror hanging high".

Lord Huang cheng

Sitting at the eastern end of the sleeping hall of Pingyao City God Temple is a beautiful young woman. It is said that she is the duke's concubine. There is a short story about the origin of this concubine: Pingyao Chenghuang is young and full of vigor, which can be said to be omniscient and omnipotent.

Once, Pingyao Town God and Jiexiu Town God got together to play chess. Pingyao Town God joked that if I beat you, your virtuous wife would be mine. Jiexiu Town God refused. Finally, Pingyao Town God won, so Pingyao Town God won.

Huoshao Chenghuang Temple

Every year from May 27th to June 27th of the lunar calendar is the temple fair period of Chenghuang Temple. During the ninth year of Xianfeng in Qing Dynasty (1859), an old man selling cakes appeared in the market. The old man kept shouting: "sell fire, sell fire." Pingyao called the cake fire, but because his cake was too small, no one bought it for a day.

A young man looked at it and sincerely told the old man, "Grandpa, your fire is too small. Everyone likes to eat big ones." The old man said to him, "burn a small fire today and a big fire tomorrow." That night, a fire broke out in the temple, and all the halls were burned to ashes except the bedroom kiln in the backyard.

Later, the young man carefully recalled it and remembered that Vulcan must have appeared. Since then, this little story has spread.

Sleeping aunt and medicine mother-in-law

There is a small ancestral temple "Yizhen Temple" in the northeast corner of Shuanglin Temple. There are two statues in the temple. One is a girl lying in bed with her eyes closed. She is called "Aunt Sleeping". One is a skinny old woman sitting next to her, called "medicine mother-in-law"

They are mortal in the world, but they will enter the temple and enjoy the service of the world. It is said that a long time ago, there was a family in Qiaotou village with a good family and a harmonious and healthy life.

However, there are unexpected events in the sky, and people are doomed. When my daughter was sixteen, her parents became seriously ill and died one after another.

This is unfair to a little girl who has lived in her parents' arms for 16 years. She can't accept this cruel reality. She visits her parents' graves every day, hoping to see them again and cry out to them, but people can't come back to life and girls can't get what they want after all.

In other words, from their home to the cemetery, they just passed the big temple in the village.

When her parents are away, she often takes her to the temple to burn incense and sacrifice, praying for the Bodhisattva to bless the whole family. Now that both parents have passed away, my daughter has never forgotten to go to the temple to worship the Bodhisattva.

In the second year, the abbot of the temple sent monks to beg for alms and prepare to renovate some temples that had been in disrepair for a long time.

After the girl knew it, she sold all the property in her family and donated every penny to the temple.

Later, she was ill in bed, and her devotion to the Buddha touched the gods.

An unknown old woman came to her side, cooking and decocting for her every day, and taking pains to serve her. After her illness, they lived alone until the little girl died and the old woman sat down with her.

In order to commemorate this charitable girl and the old lady of unknown origin, a small single-room ancestral hall was built in the northeast corner of the temple, in which their statues were molded, and the people called them "sleeping aunt" and "medicine mother-in-law".