A Study On The Relationship Between Country Fair And Temple Fair From Qing Emperor Kangxi To 1949

Carrying on the previous and continuous study on the temple fairs in Jinzhong district by the research group,this thesis takes the relationship between country fairs and temple fairs as the research object.Country fairs and temple fairs are components of a traditional market system and play significant roles in traditional society.Explaining separately,a country fair is a regularly trading place conventionalized by the locals and a temple fair serves as a general site where various activities are held,such as trading,sacrificing,entertainment and socializing.The logical starting point of the relationship between the country fair and the temple fair lies in the contents of trading,for which their temporal and spatial layouts interact.At the beginning of this thesis,a combing through both natural geography and social environment of four counties in Jinzhong city is taken,covering landform,climate,population,economy,agricultural production,transport,traditional custom and settlement situation.It aims to: grasping the existing and developing background environment of both country fairs and temple fairs;and comparatively synthesizing similarities and differences in both natural and social aspects of the four counties in Jinzhong city,to back in explaining similarities and differences in evolution features for both country fairs and temple fairs in each county.Then,influencing factors in a country fair or a temple fair held by settlements are explored.On the basis of clarifying basic features of both country fairs and temple fairs,the thesis analyzes three factors,namely income and expenses through the country fair or the temple fair held by the settlement,market self-organization and local government interference.By comparing,both the income and the expenses through holding a temple fair by settlements are higher than that through holding a country fair,the influences of the market self-organization stay relatively close,the main purpose for the local government’s interference in holding a country fair or a temple fair is tax,and the tax from holding a temple fair is relatively higher.As a whole,the holding of a country temple needs to be supported by a stable trading demand from settlements while comprehensive strength of a settlement is required to hold a temple fair.At the end of the thesis,an evolution relationship between country fairs and temple fairs of the four counties in Jinzhong city from Emperor Kangxi Reign of Qing dynasty to 1949 is analyzed.Temporal and special evolution features of country fairs and temple fairs are comparatively analyzed diachronically and synchronically.It can be obviously noticed that the temporal and special layout of the country fairs and the temple fairs are mutually influenced.As shown by their developing process and consequence,a temple fair produces a replaceable function for a country fair and two replacing forms emerged,namely direct replacing and grouped temple fairs.Certainly,there were additional three kinds of relationship before 1949,namely country fair-leading,mutual dependence and temple fair-leading,all of which were the compromising results under different conditions.Country fairs,existing as a relatively “inexpensive” market form,reflected an organization diversity of traditional settlement markets under different conditions.It can be presumed that the emerging of the replaceable relationship went on through country fair-leading period,mutual dependence period,temple fair-leading period and then temple fair replacing period.And the replacing process is analyzed by stating the development of Shanxi merchant and Jinju.Then,the thesis explores reasons for the emerging of replaceable relationship which was a combination of constrains of natural environment and production conditions as well as the active selections of both settlements and local governments.An inherent driving force in temple fairs themselves pushing the development of the replaceable relationship lies in that the temporal and spatial organization features adapt to the trading demands,and unique attractions are shown because of its functional diversity,especially carnival for all the locals.We can say that,Temple fairs are the production and the tool for local people adapting to nature in temporal and spatial dimensions and constructing social and economic life.