Lugouqiao Legend
01 · Historical Records
The early documentary records of the Lugou Bridge legends are now hard to trace; today one can only see articles on the Lugou Bridge legends published in newspapers and periodicals between 1912 and 1949. The legend stories collected respectively in the 2002 Lugou Xiaoyue and The Legends of the Lugou Bridge number forty-two; in the intangible cultural heritage survey of 2007 nineteen more were collected, and all are now collected and collated on record.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
For nearly a thousand years the Lugou Bridge legends, around the central matrix of the Lugou Bridge and created by the people of successive ages, have formed a folk legend cluster of a certain scale. The legends are rich in content and wide in time and space, holding both memory and interpretation of specific historical periods and events and a rich local character and humanistic feeling, a rare heritage of folk oral narrative. The legend stories are scattered in gazetteers and other materials. The Lugou Bridge legends hold rich historical memory and national feeling.
Legends of the Origin and Building
One of the five great categories of the Lugou Bridge legends.
Legends of the Series of Typical Components
One of the five great categories of the Lugou Bridge legends, about the stone lions and other components.
The Legend of Lugou Xiaoyue
A legend about the attached scenery of Lugou Xiaoyue.
Legends of the Lugou Bridge Incident
Legends of the 29th Army's bloody battle against the Japanese invaders.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Lugou Bridge legends are the various legends handed down orally among the people for more than eight hundred years around the Lugou Bridge outside the west gate of Wanping city in Fengtai district, Beijing; they circulate mainly in the related area where the bridge is, that is today's Fengtai district of Beijing and the Yongding river basin, and with historical development the area of transmission grew ever wider, radiating to the whole country and even spreading to Korea, Japan, Singapore and Chinese communities throughout the world. The legends are very rich in content and may be divided into five great categories: those on the origin and building of the Lugou Bridge, those on the series of its typical components, those on the attached scenery of the bridge such as Lugou Xiaoyue, those on the Lugou Bridge Incident of the 29th Army's bloody battle against the Japanese invaders, and other legends connected with the bridge. They are transmitted mainly in oral form by word of mouth among the broad masses of successive ages, known to every household and every woman and child locally.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
From the 1950s to the present cultural workers and transmitters have continued to carry out protection, collecting, collating and publishing the related legends, documents and objects, promoting the transmission and spread of this heritage item. As an organic part of Lugou Bridge culture, the Lugou Bridge legends are in perfect harmony with the historical scenery, architectural achievements and ways and customs of the bridge; they are the crystallisation and vivid expression of the people's wisdom and have relatively high artistic and historical value.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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