Continuation And Change

As a "Social practices,Rituals and Festive events" of Intangible Cultural Heritage(ICH),Flower Festival,at Dingxianyan,is an excellent example of "littletradition"-a term came up by Robert Refield.Based on the field investigation of theFlower Festival in southeast of Suide Xian,located in North of Shanxi Province,thepaper will discuss the Flower Festival's continuation and change.And then explain its live characteristics includes internal stability and external adaptability.Specifically,this study will first use the ritual circle theory to describe the folkcustom and system.This is the Flower Festival's "little tradition",contains its inherent stability and continuity.Additionally,"great tradition" was analyzed by describing contemporary changes,using the local macro-view of economic and social development as background.This shows how is the Flower Festival adapted to reality.Further analysis demonstrated that the relationship between continuity/inherent stability and change/external adaptability developed as a mutually correlated process,instead of antagonistic manner.Thus,both of them constitute its live characteristics.Finally,the idea of over-emphasis on tradition and regard modern as "damage of tradition" or "replacement of tradition" in the study of Intangible Cultural Heritage was discussed.