Study On The Dragon Boat Festival: Tradition, Nation And Cultural Representation

Study on the Dragon Boat Festival: Tradition, Nation and Cultural RepresentationThe Dragon Boat Festival, which is a popular and traditional festival celebrated on the 5th of the 5th lunar month by the Hans and other 26 of 56 ethnic groups in China. Differ from former studies, the emphasis of this dissertation is to explore the history and development of folklore in the festival, to analyze it as a symbolized system with the concept of folklorism, instead of the theories and methods of totemism, evolutionism and British structural-funcationism.This dissertation includes an introduction, five chapters and a conclusion.The introduction retrospects history of the festival studies and expounds paradigms of this research, which is on the view of social constructionism, symbolic anthropology and public folklore.The first chapter describes elements forming the Dragon Boat Festival by time orders. Many historical literatures show that folktales, rituals and lots of activities, which be held in daily life, were not appeared together or keep no change. On the contrary, they were continually invented by people in every dynasty. In order to demonstrate functions of cultural items, the dissertation introduces two concepts:Core Factor and Dynamic Factor.Long history and different spaces make folklore elements in the festival appear to be a thing of shreds and patches. However, core factors preserve memory of its cultural meaning, which drive away pestilence and disease and keep people safe and health. On the other side, dynamic factors creat symbols to share among local groups, to construct cultural identity to shape centripetal force and organize them to be a whole.Besides diachronic study, the second chapter focus on synchonic diversity and variability of the festival by chorographic archives since the Qing dynasty and intends to classfy folk activities into two main types by geographic situation, that is having water area or not. The third chapter illustrates different ethnic groups in China which have festivals hold in the 5th lunar month. Some are same to the Dragon Boat Festival, whose festivals are influenced by the Han, and others absorb many elements and are similar to it, which are kinds of aculturation.Still others keep their own cultural meanings and characters, which are regarded as the DragonBoat Festival by cultural misunderstanding.On the base of these three chapters, the later part turns to significant impact of ideology of nations, mass media and academic practice that represent traditional elements in modern styles.In fact, the modernization in recent one hundred years put political feature into the Dragon Boat Festival and makes it some special that can be distinguished from Chinese traditional festivals.Thus, the fourth chapter points out that governmental attitude,cultural policy and representation of folklore has been adjusted in China to adapt new terms of international organizations especially after the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of UNESCO on October 17,2003.The fifth chapter gives three case studies of my fieldwork in Zigui,Miluo River and Xisai to present modern status of the festival. In 2006, UNESCO ratified a "Convention for the Preservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage" aimed precisely at maintaining cultural diversity against the homogenizing forces of globalization. Four types of the Dragon Boat Festival in Zigui,Miluo River, Xisai and Suzhou are included in the First Masterpieces of Chinese National Intangible Cultural Heritage on May 20,2006. However, intangible cultural heritage policies are also a source of new problems and new politics. Although they are a powerful means of developing a sense of belonging and of revitalizing communities, they can also contribute to destabilizing them if not managed properly with the active participation of the local populations involved. Actually, new rituals are invented for commercial advantage in these places,such as poet gathering in Zigui and dragon boat race in Miluo River,even the traditional ritual in Xisai is changing quietly and inconspicuously.In this situation, folklore break local shared groups to national and international arena.Not only local groups and institutions but also folklorists meet new problems and challenges of cultural representation in contemporary society.In the conclusion, the dissertation claims that the Dragon Boat Festival is an invention of tradition, so folklore and folklorism in it can not be separated from each other. Its folk character has been preserved and passed from generation to generation, meanwhile, its public character has been noticed and prominent particularly in the modernizing nation, China. Therefore, it is not only a cultural given, but also a cultural construct. The Dragon Boat Festival become a life style in publica.Academic reflectivityin folklorist promotes my study towards to new perspectives such as power, media and cultural representation to analyze cultural construct and practice in the festival.