| Human beings have been pursuing high-quality life ever since they existed in the world, and their focuses of pursuits have gradually evolved from survival to the level and quality of life. It can be said that the history of human being is, in some degree, a consistent process in which people pursue life with high quality. Female, as a part of main body of society, plays an indispensable role. Their living quality not only influences individual lives but also the steady and harmonious development of families and human society. The status of female, to some extent, depends on the degree of social progress and civilization, meanwhile the status quo of female is also a decisive factor in the harmony of family and society.Nvwa, a goddess in Chinese ancient myth, is regarded as both the ancestor of human being and one of the three gods in the initial stage of Chinese history. As one of the greatest female images in Chinese mind, Nvwa saves human and creates everything in the world. By patching the sky with magic pebbles, creating human with earth, making the marriage system, and inventing music, not only Nvwa helps human beings survive and thrive but abide by social rules and improve moral standard. In nutshell, Nvwa is of great significance in the initial development of human society and plays a very important role in the thriving and evolution of human beings.Shexian County, located in Hebei province, is famous in China for a well-known historic resort called Palace of Sky-patching Goddess or Grandmother Top by locals, where Nvwa patched the sky and create human with earth in Chinese myth. The palace is also named as "living building" or "suspending temple" for its unique architectural structure. With more than1450years history, it is the first and largest ancient architecture in honor of Nvwa in China. On May20,2006, Memorial Ceremony of Nvwa in Shexian County was announced as intangible cultural heritage by State Council. The largest-scale wall-carving scripts groups of China are also in the palace which is of great academic value. With beautiful atmosphere and many beautiful legends about Nvwa, Shexian County attracts many tourists from home and abroad. There are two magnificent memorial ceremonies every year in Shexian County, namely government ceremony and folk ceremony. During these ceremonies, the tourists and devout palmers will get together here to honor Nvwa. The number of devout palmers will peak in every march of Chinese lunar year when a great temple fair will be held. In Fujian province a temple was built on the appearance of Palace of Sky-patching Goddess, which illustrates the deep and great influence of Nvwa culture. In such a social atmosphere, Nvwa culture and its carrier, namely Palace of Sky-patching Goddess, interact and develop with local culture and economy. The local architecture and beliefs endow Nvwa the holiness and strengthen people’s worship to her, meanwhile local people gained a lot of spiritual comfort and beliefs from Nvwa myth and its carrier. The two aspects are intertwined and co-developed, creating the prosperity of today’s Nvwa culture. Compared with other Nvwa—worshiping places, Shexian County is a unique and typical one in the exploration and development of Nvwa culture, carrier of Nvwa culture, Nvwa belief and spirit.With the worship to Nvwa wide-spread in Shexian county and nearby districts, what kind of life do the females live in this region? What influences does Nvwa culture have on local social progress? How to cultivate and promote Nvwa culture more meaningfully? How to promote the role and functions females play in society? With the questions above, the author of this dissertation visited the villages nearby Palace of sky-patching Goddess to conduct a research with questionnaire so as to explore the possible influences of Nvwa on local females, in hope that the potential advantages and positive roles of females can be fully cultivated in the construction of a harmonious society.This dissertation falls into4parts.Part1mainly introduces the content and features of Nvwa myths in Shexian County, as well as the characteristics and details of Palace of sky-patching Goddess, the carrier of Nvwa myth. On this basis, this part analyzes the relationship between Nvwa stories and Palace of Sky-patching Goddess, discovers the realistic meaning that the two demonstrate in local people’s life and history. Generally, myth is originated from reality and often reflects realistic life or the illusion resulted from the misfortune in ancient times. In this sense, this part discusses Nvwa’s embodiment of original mother and explores the social significance from the origin of myth and scenes in myth to demonstrate the optimism and general love Nvwa brings to us.The second part of this dissertation covers the local social elements related to Nvwa, including memorial ceremonies, the magnificence of pilgrimage, prayers, ceremonial speech, family ceremonies, and the females involved in these activities. Besides, local temple fairs along with their influences on local economy, reputation, living standard, and females are discussed in this part. In recent years, temple fair has promoted the development of local economy, at the same time; many traditional customs have been passed from generation to generation through various ceremonial activities. Therefore, the customs is endowed with precious academic value. In fact, Nvwa and the stories relevant to her have turned an indispensable aspect that is deeply rooted in local people’s life, many living habits and customs of local people are closely related to the image of Nvwa.The third part focuses on local females from the perspectives of daily life, family, social activities, and cultural activities in order to study the characteristics of female life and find the influencing factors Nvwa brings to local females’ life. Associating Nvwa culture with contemporary society, this part comes up with the concept of improving female’s life with Nvwa spirit.In the fourth part, the author discusses how Nvwa myth and its carrier rethink and reconstruct local females’ lives. With reconstructing as purpose, this part rethinks Nvwa myth and its carrier from both positive and negative perspectives by dialectical thinking, finding that the popularity of Nvwa not only has a positive influence on local females but results in superstition, vulgarization and generalization of Nvwa image. In the investigation, the author discovers that the reasonable attitudes toward Nvwa depend on worshipers’ age and educational background. So, this paper holds the view that encouragement, experiencing life, spirit, self-awareness ought to emphasized in the construction of Nvwa myth and its carrier. More importantly, the value orientation of females should be directed by Nvwa spirit and females should find the best social position where they could play a more important role in the construction harmonious society. In the end of this dissertation, the author puts forward three propositions based on the whole study. The first is that the social status of female is not granted by other social groups but is widely acknowledged and accepted by the whole society through their own efforts and contribution to society. The second proposition focuses on the coordination and different competition powers between male and female, holding that the differences between females and males do exist thus the potentials of both should be fully cultivated by taking right responsibility. The third proposition is that maternal love, especially in villages, is a big theme to study in that females shoulder the major responsibility in family education and even in the whole nation’s future. So females should show their maternal love scientifically by radiating the general love and wisdom of Nvwa. |
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