Investigation Of Folk Sports Activities Of Hakka Festival In Gannan Area

The sport named Dragon Boat Race in the Pond held in Yangchun town, LongnanCounty, Jiangxi Province, during the Dragon Boat Festival is a very important Hakkafolk sport. But the sport has not attracted much attention of the society and fewscientific research achievements about the sport have been reported. So it is anecessary and interesting mission to figure out its origin, history and development. Toexplore the effective methods to its protection and inheritance is another urgent task.A comprehensive and in-depth analysis about Dragon Boat Race in the Pond isperformed through the ways of literature review, interview, field investigation, caseanalysis and other research methods combining with the knowledge and principle offolklore, sports science or related fields. Firstly, this paper outlines the natural andhuman geography background of Dragon Boat Race in the Pond, discusses itshistorical origin, analysis the content of its activities and organizational processes,sums up the main characteristics of the activities, points out that the culturalconnotation and social value of the festival folk sports activities. Secondly, thedilemmas the folk sports of Dragon Boat Race in the Pond facing in the process ofinheritance and development are deeply analyzed. Finally, on the basis the results ofthe survey, some effective suggestions about the protection and inheritance of DragonBoat Race in the Pond are proposed in this paper.The main findings and conclusions are listed as follows:1. The dragon boat race in Yangcun town is an unique folk customs for dragon boatfestival, which originated in the Hongzhi years of Ming dynasty and introduced bySizhang Lai, the eighth forefather of Lai gens in Taochuan of Yangcun Town. Itsspecial customs include the races are held in a big pond of15acres in size and morethan100meters long and women are permitted to participate in the events. After500years of inheritance, the unique and traditional folk culture of the dragon boat race inthe pond including worship of Dragon Lord, invitation of Dragon Lord, gathering ofDragon Boats, evil cleanup, finals, boat sightseeing, return of Dragon Lord andsending duck Boats has formed, which becomes the most popular folk activities ofdragon boat festival in three counties around Nonglan from Jiangxi and Guangdongprovinces. There are much money spending in this folk activity, its source mainlyincludes: public property income and raise masses.2. The main cultural connotation features of Dragon Boat Race in the Pond include:(1) Long history and a wide range of mass base;(2) Unique dragon boat culture andbeliefs;(3) Advocating civilization;(4) Dare to reform and advance with time.3. Dragon Boat Race in the Pond is a typical representative of Hakka folk festivalactivities, it also has its own social value. Its social value mainly include:(1) A goodhelper of the development and promotion of people’s body building.(2) Positiveeffects on keeping people together.(3) An important role in the process of promotingthe development of local economy.(4) Great contribution on the inheritance anddevelopment of Hakka culture.(5) A tie of consolidating all Hakka friendship.4. With the changes of the economic and social environment, the inheritance anddevelopment of folk festival sports activities encounter many problems such as worse environment, weak protection rules from government, lack of funds, personnelloss of inheritance, etc. To overcome those problems, several constructive suggestionsare put forward as follows:(1) Building the "government-led" protection andpromotion mechanisms.(2) Adding folk festival sports activities into the contents ofcolleges or universities sports teaching.(3) Turn the folk festival sports activities intothe tourism resources.