Main contents of the temple fair

There are many folk activities at the temple fair, such as touching stone monkeys, making money at Wofeng Bridge and so on. Below the arc-shaped stone carving of Baiyun Temple, there is a stone monkey relief. People think that touching stone monkeys can eliminate diseases and prolong life, so they compete to touch them. There is a big copper coin hanging in the bridge opening under the phoenix bridge. There is a small copper bell in the hole of the copper coin, which reads "The bell rings auspicious". If you can hit the bronze bell with a coin in your hand, you will get what you want. These two events are the most lively activities at the temple fair.

With the changes of the times, many new contents have been added to ancient temple fairs, such as business negotiations during the temple fairs, but showing folk customs has always been the main feature of temple fairs. The contents include lion dance, traditional national flower performance, modern dance, Beijing folk figure modeling, traditional commercial "cover" exhibition, old Beijing photo exhibition, folk arts and crafts exhibition, special book exhibition, Beijing opera, martial arts and acrobatics. Temple fair integrates tourism, leisure and entertainment, shopping and catering, and has distinctive traditional ethnic characteristics. As soon as the temple fair opened, people from all directions came to worship, offering sacrifices to the gods and burning incense, and praying to return home. This is the activity of gods around "temple" and "society", and it is the theme of traditional temple fairs. Among them, praying for children with witchcraft can best reflect the core of China traditional culture, which is determined by the nature of China agricultural society. Thousands of years of feudal society, people's living environment has basically not changed, and the reproduction of future generations has become a top priority for thousands of years. Therefore, praying for the son, an ancient form of witchcraft, will be attached to various forms of gatherings and displayed. Typical temple fairs are Renzu Temple Fair in Huaiyang, Henan, Mazu Tempel Temple Fair in Tianjin, Shuanglin Temple Fair in Pingyao, Shanxi, Miaofeng Mountain and Baiyunguan Pedestrian Street in Beijing.

The ancestral temple in Huaiyang, dedicated to Nuwa and Taihao Fuxi, can be said to be the most primitive temple fair of religion and witchcraft. The ancestral temple in the north of Huaiyang is said to be the place where the skulls of Tai Hao and Fuxi are buried, so it is also called Taihaoling. Every year from February 2nd to March 2nd, the Terran Temple Fair is held for one month. Its main activities are ancestor worship and "tying dolls". Married and childless women should dig out the "children's kiln" symbolizing the door of fertility during the temple fair and buy back some local mud toys "mud dogs" in order to give birth as soon as possible. These clay toys made of loess have different shapes of "human-faced monkeys", which are called "ancestor monkeys" by locals, as well as all kinds of weird and interesting animal toys, such as monkeys with bellies, monkeys with heads and swallows, two-headed tigers, cows, pigs, horses and sheep. Besides offering them to their ancestors, women also take them home as children's toys. Temple fair is a festival activity related to culture and entertainment, and various folk artists make a living by performing.

Among them, there are mainly: Shaanxi opera, shoulder pole play (puppet show), cross talk, double reed, magic (called "magic" in ancient China, commonly known as "magic"), counting treasures, playing banners, yangko, stilts and so on. The dough sculpture folk temple fair in Beijing Temple Fair has attracted ordinary people with its special charm. The toy market at the temple fair is the most gaudy. In the folk children's toy stalls, there are masks, puppet shows, cars, knives and guns, bamboo dragons and so on. There are many kinds of folk toys at the temple fair, which are beautifully made and can be called handicrafts.

Mainly include: diabolo, flapping lantern, lantern, full, sugar blower, sugar painter, sugar sculptor, noodle sculptor, nine rings, rattle.

There are many ways to sell toys, such as rings, lottery and shooting. Some temple fairs are annual, and some have several days a month. In addition to the fixed term, there are also indefinite days. For example, the duration of the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China: Long Fu Temple on September 9, 10, 1 2, Land Temple on Wednesday, Baita Temple on Friday and Saturday, and Huguo Temple on July 8. In addition, Dongyue Temple and Dazhong Temple (generally open 18 days to half a month) opened on the first day of the first month, Caishen Temple opened on the second day, Baiyun Temple opened on the 17th and 18th, and Pantao Palace opened on the third day of March. There are various temple fairs almost every day, sometimes more than one a day, so Beijing is also the world of temple fairs. It is not easy to count all temple fairs in detail.

The date of the temple fair is held at the Temple Fair Festival. For example, according to legend, Sun Simiao, the drug king, was born on February 2nd and held a temple fair in Wang Yao for 65,438+00 days. According to legend, Taishang Laojun was born on February 15, Xiyue Emperor was born on March 18, Dongyue Emperor was born on March 28, and there are temple fairs in laojunmiao, Xiyue Temple and Dongyue Temple. Our ancestors specially arranged the "birthdays" of these deities and buddhas in the slack season, or at the beginning of the year, or at the end of the year, or between spring sowing and summer sowing, or after autumn harvest and winter storage, not only to pray for good luck, but also to facilitate trade activities. The celebration time of temple fairs was originally when various religious festivals (mainly Buddhism and Taoism) were held, and later it developed into some fixed dates. In modern times, it is mostly held on festivals such as the Spring Festival and Lantern Festival. They are mainly distributed around ancient temples, such as Long Fu Temple (demolished) in Beijing, Baiyun Temple and Hemao Yuzu Shrine in Kyoto. There are also places where you can meet without temples, such as longtan lake, Changdian and most of Beijing's Chinatown.

Originally belonging to folk beliefs, the newspaper people's activities of appreciating the gods have been combined with Buddhism and Taoism. Its activities gradually shifted from rural communities to Buddhist temples and Taoist temples. When Buddhism and Taoism hold various festivals and celebrations, various folk societies and social organizations also take the initiative to go to gatherings for entertainment. In this way, temples and Taoist temples have gradually become mass gathering places based on religious activities. The local product market is the main market of temple fair trade.

In the temple fair before liberation, before the trade activities, a ceremony of offering sacrifices to the gods was held. For example, the Hou Ji Temple Fair in Yongfeng Town, pucheng county, is held on the sixth day of June every year with a court ceremony, which is solemn and solemn. Early in the morning of the congress, all local officials and gentry with status should bathe, change clothes and dress neatly, enter Houji Temple, and bow down to the statue of Hou Ji, the agricultural god. Everyone sings "Yongfeng": "Farmers sow grain first, and then match it another day. I have steamed people for thousands of years. Agriculture is auspicious and windy. It's just right to grow crops in the field, son. " There are music classes and song classes to cooperate with. After the ceremony, you can trade freely.

There are many kinds of local products: farm tools, daily necessities, poultry and livestock. In some places, temple fairs are called "mule-horse conferences". Temple fairs are obviously entertaining, and compared with ordinary fairs, the food market is particularly developed.

During the temple fair, restaurants, pubs and teahouses were temporarily set up. In the past, farmers usually brought their own dry food to save money. After they entered the restaurant, they broke the dry food into small pieces and processed them with each other. Farmers say that eating in this kind of museum, "you can eat fried fire without spending much money" ("fried fire" is the Guanzhong dialect, that is, the temperature. )