The Cultural Memory Of The Immigrant Community - Liaoning Civil Society Fire Study

Teeming activity is one of the entertaining activities of Chinese traditional festival cultures. As a traditional folk art performance of Han Nationality to entertain God and Man itself, teeming activity originates from the worship of ancient earth and fire. As an ancient cultural phenomenon, teeming activity records, inherits and breeds agricultural culture in a mobile way. Therefore, it becomes the most ceremonious and complicated ceremony and folk entertaining activity with its centuries-old performances. At present, teeming activity has been listed under the protection of national intangible cultural heritage.Taking the teeming activity in Chaoyang, Yi County, and Benxi as an example and setting it in the context of Northeastern migration and furthermore, studying it as a symbol of culture, this dissertation illustrates the value and significance of Liaoning folk teeming activity as national intangible cultural heritage from the perspective of cultural transformation, social memory and cultural recognition. The teeming activities in these areas retain and present the emergence, transformation, development and reservation of the traces of migration history, thus making them an important case for studying the culture memory of Northeast Migration Culture.Besides, this dissertation may offer a significant reference to areas with weak sense of protection of their intangible cultural heritage. For Liaoning Province with a marginalized culture over a long period of time, its cultural ecology is relatively weak, and it has been endowed with rather few intangible cultural heritage projects. As a vivid case of migration society and culture transition, teeming activity, the one with the biological transformation of migration culture, when defined as intangible cultural heritage, what changes have occurred to it, and what is the social encouraging force behind it? To better understand the inheritance and to further protect intangible cultural heritage, accumulate protective experiences, and enrich protective ways, the dissertation has offered a helpful reference.This dissertation can be put into three parts:the introduction, the main body and conclusion. The main body can be further divided into four chapters.In introduction, the picking of this subject and its value has been introduced. Also, the methodology of research and references have been mentioned.Chapter One gives a relatively complete presentation of teeming activity in a limited space and time from these views. Local chronicles about folklore have been referred to present the historical development of, to trace its origin and to discuss on the variety and its differences of its synchronicity. The living teeming activities over our country and their types of performances have been classified and introduced in this chapter. Furthermore, as an important part of traditional festivals, teeming-activity ceremonies carry with them the profound national emotions and cultural psyche, which is especially true and significant in this modernized and globelized world. It has become the identification of Chinese culture. Its process of transformation from grass root culture of the bottom of folklore to symbols of national culture.Chapter Two puts emphasis on the patterns of performances of teeming activities in Liaoning Province. It illustrates the cultural conditions of teeming activities in Chao Yang, Yi County, and Ben Xi from the point of view of natural ecology and human ecology. The regions popularized with teeming activities and their types, structures and forms of performances have also been presented in order to restore a truer and more vivid picture of them.Chapter Three is cultural transition:migration society and culture memory. Historical documents have been referred to clarify the development of migration in the northeast region. It also interprets the significance of the reservation of its own culture when migrants are greatly influenced by the tendency to recognize and comply with the culture of their new settlements. In this chapter, the value and function of Liaoning Province has also been investigated and its symbolic meanings of these performances and ceremonies are examined.Chapter Four sets the aim of this research on the application of teeming activity to the modern world as intangible cultural heritage. It puts teeming activity in a mobile cultural construction and gives an analysis of the cultural presentation, inheritance situation and the existing problems and the future development of Liaoning teeming activity in contemporary China.Conclusion and discussion mainly gives a brief answer to the issues mentioned above. Through the emphasis of teeming activity as a retained cultural memory of migrants from Central Plains to the Northeast, it attempts to trigger off the thinking on the protection of intangible cultural heritage with this case study of protection of teeming activity in the northeastern region.