Research Of The Legend And Fair Of Yan Wenjiang In Boshan

The temple fair is an important part of folk activities in China’s social life, whilethe temple fair culture is a crucial element of traditional culture in China. As a partycoming into being based on the temple with fixed content like some certainceremonies, the temple fair is of vital significance of culture and folk customs, for thatthe truth of temple fair rests with folk belief, while the core of it lies in enshrining andworship for gods. With more attention are paid to the folk culture and thepopularization of the folk-custom subject, the research of temple fair is deeper anddeeper.As ethnic culture legacy, the YanWenJiang temple fair held in Boshan area ofZibo city is of great significance for studying. It originates from the widespread YanWenjiang tales and Yan Wenjiang belief in Boshan and has high participation in thelocal place. This essay, by presenting the documentary records and tales story of YanWenjiang in history and analyzing the specific procedure of sacrificial ceremony inYan Wenjiang temple fair, not only tries to comprehend the course that how YanWenjiang tales is spread among and influences on ordinary people, understand thedevelopment of local village society at that time, research the function and effects ofthe temple fair on the village society, but also intend to learn the traditional culturalaccumulation in the realistic society, comprehend properly how the temple fairinherits and develops in Boshan area as public culture and explore how the temple fairkeep its authenticity in history while facing the social transformation in modernsociety, so as to better fulfill all kinds of the temple fair’s function in the future byserving the harmonious development of the local economy, culture and society.There are three chapters in this essay.Chapter1: In this part, the author investigates the personality and story of YanWenjiang and analyzes the local people’s Yan Wenjiang belief and the origin of thetemple fair by referring to specific documentary records with assistance of fieldinvestigation. This passage firstly clarifies the origin and development of the tale ofYan Wenjiang in the diachronic order according to historical documentary records.With analyzing the segregation of the local people’s Yan Wenjiang belief, the author concludes that the representatives coming from husband’s family and mother’s familyare the two parts being engaged in the sacrificial ceremony. Next, the author mainlytalks about three factors contributing to the existence of the Yan Wenjiang belief. Thefirst one is that the Confucian ethics are highly praised and the tale of Yan Wenjiangmainly reflects the spirit of filial piety. The second one is the emphasizing of thefunction of water gods. In agriculture society, the mountain geographical condition inBoshan area made it extremely hard to conduct irrigation, hence the local farmers hadto pray for raining to ensure the harvest of crops. In the tales, Yan Wenjiang wasconsidered having magic power to bring rain. The last one is the intervention of thegovernment authority. The Yan Wenjiang belief was more of holiness because thegovernment has granted Yan Wenjiang with honor since Yuan Dynasty and list thesacrificial ceremony for her into the country’s fiesta.Chapter2: After investigating plentiful field materials, the author lists theprocesses of welcoming and seeing off Yan Wenjiang god in the temple fair. Theceremony factors are interpreted in this passage, including the choice of holding time,the make-up of space, the constitution of the people being engaged in, the properties,sound and language in the ceremony. The author tries to interpret the rich socialbackground and culture connotation reflected in the ceremony by translating thesymbolic meaning and function of the ceremony.Chapter3: The author explores how should Yan Wenjiang temple fair beinherited and developed as a kind of public culture in the new era. Although theengagement of the government would bring new development opportunities for thetemple fair, its culture value also faces the crisis of being covered by commercialelements. The courses of the ceremony have changed with the transformation of theera culture, which makes the question of how to keep the “Authenticity” of the YanWenjiang temple fair in the progress of the society a crucial one which is worthy ourdeep thinking.