Guo Jianming

01 · Lineage & Regional School

His great-grandfather Guo Wen was a well-known artisan of the lamp-mountain worship in the village in the late Qing and early Republican years, able to arrange more than two hundred oil lamps on the wooden frame inside the lamp-mountain tower in an assortment of patterns. Within the regional tradition and school record of Lantern Festival in Wei, Hebei: The main content is divided into four parts: lighting the lantern mountain, worshiping the lantern mountain, performing shehuo, and singing grand opera. China began lighting lanterns during the Lantern Festival as early as the Han dynasty, and this gradually developed into a popular custom. By the Tang dynasty the custom was even more widespread: the lines 'Fire trees and silver blossoms merge; the star bridge opens, its iron locks undone' describe the splendor of the Lantern Festival in Chang'an. In the Ming dynasty the Lantern Festival had already become an important part of the people's lives, with ten consecutive days of lantern-viewing. In the Qing dynasty it was a folk festival shared in merriment by the whole population, and setting off firecrackers and fireworks added to the excitement of the lantern-viewing activities. A number of traditional activities are also carried out at the Lantern Festival. The first is guessing lantern riddles, also called 'beating lantern riddles', which first appeared in the Song dynasty: riddles are hung up for people to guess, and those who guess correctly receive a prize. The second is eating yuanxiao (sweet rice dumplings). Yuanxiao was originally called 'fuyuanzi' (floating round balls) and is also known as 'tangtuan' or 'tangyuan'; it is a ball-shaped food made of glutinous rice flour, usually with a filling, boiled in water before eating, and remarkably sweet and delicious. Eating yuanxiao symbolizes that the whole family is reunited, harmonious, and happy. Besides the Han, many ethnic minorities also celebrate the Lantern Festival, including the Manchu, Korean, Hezhe, Mongolian, Daur, Evenki, Oroqen, Hui, Xibe, Tibetan, Bai, Naxi, Miao, Yao, She, Zhuang, Buyi, Li, and Gelao peoples, and their festival activities each have their own distinctive features. The Yuxian lantern-mountain worship custom appeared during the Jiajing reign of the Ming dynasty, entered a formative stage by the late Ming and early Qing, and in the late Qing and early Republican period it combined with folk shehuo and opera, its content and form becoming richer and more refined.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han ethnicity, born in July 1967 in Yu County, Hebei Province. Influenced by his family environment, he came into contact with the lamp-mountain worship from early childhood. The craft has been transmitted in his family from generation to generation. After graduating from middle school he returned to the village to farm and formally studied under his father's younger cousin Guo Miao, quickly mastering the entire technique. As the old artisans grew older, he began to organize young and able-bodied men in the making and ritual performance of the lamp-mountain worship. In recent years the folk shehuo he has made for the lamp-mountain worship, among them Abundant Harvest of the Five Grains, Auspiciousness as One Wishes and Peace under Heaven, have astonished visitors with their hazy, shimmering beauty, lending new vitality to this archaic folk activity. Within the documented technical tradition of Lantern Festival in Wei, Hebei: The Lantern Festival, also called the 'Shangyuan Festival', the 'Yuanxi Festival', or the 'Festival of Lanterns', is a traditional Chinese festival, widely observed throughout the country. In China the first month of the lunar calendar is the yuan (first) month, and in ancient times night was known as 'xiao'; therefore the night of the fifteenth day of the first month, when the year's first full moon appears, is named the 'Yuanxiao Festival'. In some places the Lantern Festival also includes the custom of 'walking off a hundred ailments', also called 'roasting away a hundred ailments' or 'dispersing a hundred ailments'. On the day of the festival people walk in groups, crossing bridges together or heading out into the countryside, symbolizing the dispelling of illness and disaster and the attainment of peace and good health. Since modern times, traditional performance items such as dragon-lantern dances, lion dances, stilt walking, land-boat rowing, yangge (rice-sprout) dances, and Taiping drum playing have been added to Lantern Festival activities in various places, giving the festival new development in the course of its transmission. The Lantern Festival, with a history of more than two thousand years, is not only widely celebrated on both sides of the Taiwan Strait but is also highly valued in overseas Chinese communities. The Yuxian lantern-mountain worship custom is a type of folk shehuo activity, transmitted in Shangsuzhuang Village, Songjiazhuang Town, Yuxian County, Hebei Province. On the twelfth day of the first lunar month each year, the people of Shangsuzhuang Village begin preparing to hold the lantern-mountain worship activity: on the one hand they clean the lantern-mountain tower and the village's temples large and small, hanging lanterns and colored decorations; on the other they prepare the offerings for the sacrifice and the lamp wicks, lamp cups, hemp oil, and other materials for lighting the lantern mountain. On the morning of the fourteenth, a lamp pole is erected at the crossroads between the lantern-mountain tower and the Sanyi Temple, and the spirit tablet of the God of Fire is placed atop the pole. From outside the fort gate to the main street inside the fort, rectangular row lanterns — wooden frames pasted over with paper — and multicolored 'street-crossing papers' are also hung, bearing auspicious phrases. The row lanterns are arranged in ten rows, signifying perfection in every respect; the street-crossing papers number twelve rows in ordinary years and thirteen in leap-month years, meaning peace in every month and favorable weather for the crops. On the evening of the fifteenth, the lantern-mountain worship custom formally begins. When night falls, people light the lamps arranged in patterns with candles, producing pictures and characters made of lamplight. During the worship, a boy whose parents are both living is chosen to play the 'lantern official', while four young and middle-aged villagers dress as yamen runners and carry a single-pole sedan chair in which the lantern official rides. Actors from the village opera troupe, heavily made up, accompany him, entering the fort from outside the gate, while the villagers and sightseers beat gongs and drums along the way and worship in front of the lantern-mountain tower. After the worship ends, shehuo performances and grand opera begin. In front of the opera stage the lanterns and decorations shine brilliantly, firecrackers thunder, drums and music sound together, and the village troupe's actors appear in costume, performing operas on themes drawn from historical stories and from myths and legends. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Ten ranks of lanterns": Ten ranks of papered wooden lanterns line the road from the outer gate into the main street. "Paper banners across the street": Coloured motto banners cross the street: twelve in a common year, thirteen in a leap month. "Lighting the lantern mountain": Candles are set alight to spell out characters on the mountain, tended through the night. "The lantern officer in his sedan": A boy is chosen as the lantern officer, carried in a sedan by four young men with the troupe in full paint.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He is a national representative bearer of the Lantern Festival (Yuxian Lamp-Mountain Worship Custom), a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Guo Jianming · National Representative Bearer Archive