Yan Jishu

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Yan Jishu, Male, Han, from Ezhou, Hubei, is a sixth-batch national representative bearer of Lantern Festival (Ⅹ-71). The tradition is documented in Ezhou, Hubei. Within the regional tradition and school record of Lantern Festival in Ezhou, Hubei: The Hundred-Section Dragon's procession centers on Yanjiawan Bay in Songshan Village, Yanji Town, with the surrounding villages taking turns inviting the lantern; members of the Yan clan from seventeen provinces and cities, including Jiangxi, Hunan, and Jiangsu, send people to offer their congratulations, watching not only whether the dragon's sections join together and whether the coiled-lamp posture observes proper etiquette, but also the taboos that must not be broken. With an audience of more than a hundred thousand, one village's lantern fair must each year borrow hands, benches, and gongs and drums from neighboring villages. The old roots of the Hundred-Section Dragon lie in the waterside settlements around Mount Song: the dragon's hundred-plus sections are joined one after another from the bridges, planks, and lamps contributed household by household; its length is not decided by the craftsman, but by the number of participating families. Once this practice of turning the whole clan's labor into a single dragon took shape, the dragon's length became the measure of the village clan's rise and decline, and the construction schedule stretched from the start of the year to year's end, so that the dragon and the number of clan members became one.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

The bearer record for Yan Jishu is anchored in the documented technical standards of Lantern Festival in Ezhou, Hubei. Within the documented technical tradition of Lantern Festival in Ezhou, Hubei: The Mount Song Hundred-Section Dragon custom of Ezhou City, Hubei Province, is a large-scale dragon-lantern procession and sacrifice folk activity spontaneously organized by the villagers of Songshan Village during the Spring Festival; it has been transmitted for more than 390 years to this day. The dragon lantern in the fair has 101 sections and is more than 400 meters long in total, hence the name "Hundred-Section Dragon." The main area of the Mount Song Hundred-Section Dragon Lantern Fair is Yanjiawan Bay in Songshan Village, Yanji Town, with its activities extending to the surrounding townships and villages; members of the Yan clan from 17 provinces and cities, including Jiangxi, Hunan, and Jiangsu, also send representatives to observe and offer their congratulations. The making of the dragon lantern begins in the previous year and lasts more than four months; the process steps are complex and exacting, with strict formal specifications. The completed items, such as the Hundred-Section Dragon lantern, the dragon carriage, the statue of Wei Zheng, the green lion, the white elephant, the dragon banners, and the Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars lanterns, are stored in Songshan Temple. Sacrificial ceremonies such as the "lamp contest" (doudeng) are held on the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth lunar month. On New Year's Eve, the Hundred-Section Dragon performs the "displaying of the lamps" (xiandeng). From the first day of the first lunar month to the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the Hundred-Section Dragon goes out to bestow blessings. Upon reaching its destination, the Hundred-Section Dragon rests in the "coiled lamp" (pandeng) posture, while the green lion and the white elephant go from house to house bestowing blessings. During the lantern-playing period, lantern operas are always performed, and the liveliest and indispensable part of the lantern opera is the "sending of the waist table" (songyaotai). On the morning of the eighteenth day of the first month, sacrifices and divination are held again to determine the date of the next lantern fair; the dragon lantern procession then parades around the village, and the dragon head and dragon tail are detached from the body to begin the "running wind" (paofeng), until head and tail meet again, and the dragon is sent to low-lying ground for the "transforming of the lamp" (huadeng), bringing one lantern fair to an end; the audience numbers more than 100,000. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Building the dragon lantern": One hundred and one sections totalling four hundred metres take four months to build to a strict standard. "The lamp contest": On the twenty-fourth of the twelfth month a lamp contest fixes the programme of the coming festival. "First appearance of the dragon": On New Year's Eve the dragon first appears, showing itself once within the village before the year turns. "Parading blessings and resting the lamp": The dragon tours from the first to the fifteenth, while lion and elephant visit the houses separately.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

In 2025, Yan Jishu was announced in the sixth batch of national representative bearers for Lantern Festival, with Ezhou, Hubei as the declared area. Within the documented safeguarding record of Lantern Festival in Ezhou, Hubei: The project was inscribed in the national inventory in 2021 (batch 5), with Ezhou, Hubei as its declared area, and Ezhou Lin KongJingJiQuMinSu Culture Museum as its safeguarding unit. Since the project was inscribed in the national inventory, its declared area and safeguarding unit have carried out documentation, transmission and presentation within the national safeguarding framework. Together, the inventory record and the project archive form the public documentary basis for the bearer’s transmission practice.

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. Yanjishu (Ezhou, Hubei) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Yanjishu · China ICH Official Archive