Laoshan Folk Tales
01 · Historical Records
The Laoshan legends are an oral literature collectively created by the people of Laoshan in Shandong for a thousand years; their tellers include peasants, fishermen, Daoist priests, monks, scholars and handicraftsmen. Influenced by the natural geography and Daoist culture of Laoshan, the legends were continually enriched in their long transmission, forming a rich and varied body of legends. They include more than five thousand six hundred folk oral works of many types and subjects, such as myths of natural change, hero myths, legends of historical figures, legends of religious figures, legends of immortals and the Dao, legends of hills and waters, legends of local products, legends of custom, tales of ghosts, foxes and spirits, animal stories, stories of life, witty-figure stories and allusions.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Laoshan legends are an oral literature collectively created by the people of Laoshan in Shandong for a thousand years, their tellers including peasants, fishermen, Daoist priests, monks, scholars and handicraftsmen. They include more than five thousand six hundred folk oral works of many types and subjects. Influenced by the natural, geographical environment and Daoist culture, the most distinctive Laoshan legends are the scenery legends, legends of religious figures, tales of ghosts, foxes and spirits and maritime stories. The Laoshan legends depend mutually on the natural scenery and Daoist culture of Laoshan; hills, sea, Dao and custom fuse to form a distinctive regional cultural form. The Laoshan legends were continually enriched in their transmission from generation to generation and have become an important part of Laoshan culture.
The Laoshan Scenery Legends
One of the most distinctive types of Laoshan legend.
Legends of Immortals and the Dao
Legends connected with the Daoist culture of Laoshan.
Tales of Ghosts, Foxes and Spirits
One of the most distinctive types of Laoshan legend.
Maritime Stories
One of the types of legend influenced by the coastal environment of Laoshan.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Laoshan folk stories circulate with the Laoshan district of Qingdao as their centre and are closely bound up with the hill-and-sea scenery, temples and local products of Laoshan; the scenery legends, legends of religious figures, tales of ghosts, foxes and spirits and maritime stories are the most distinctive. Oral transmission is the main mode of the Laoshan legends' transmission, their tellers to be found throughout the villages and fishing villages around Laoshan.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Laoshan folk stories have the feature of a fusion of a rustic popular culture with a hill-and-sea culture and continually evolve in the mutual penetration of secular and religious culture, with relatively high historical, literary and academic research value. At present the tellers of the legends lack successors and it already faces the danger of being lost, urgently needing protection and transmission. They are important oral material for studying the maritime culture, Daoist culture and folk belief of Shandong.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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