Donghaixiaofu Legend
01 · Historical Records
By the Yuan the dramatist Guan Hanqing created The Injustice to Dou E on the model of the Donghai filial daughter-in-law, sung throughout the land, and the Donghai filial daughter-in-law legend accordingly influenced the whole country.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Donghai filial daughter-in-law legend is the various legends arising around the Donghai filial daughter-in-law Zhou Qing and has a history of more than two thousand years. Its core area of circulation is Lianyungang city in Jiangsu, radiating also to the vast areas of northern Jiangsu and southern Shandong. It is told that in Donghai there was a filial daughter-in-law named Zhou Qing, widowed early and without children, who cared for her mother-in-law most carefully and whose filial piety was known throughout the neighbourhood. Later the mother-in-law hanged herself so as not to be a burden to the filial daughter-in-law, but the sister-in-law falsely accused the filial daughter-in-law of causing her death. The prefect unjustly executed the filial daughter-in-law, and for three years the commandery suffered drought. A later prefect sacrificed at the tomb of the filial daughter-in-law and redressed her injustice, whereupon heaven sent heavy rain and that year there was a good harvest. The legend is recorded in the Western Han Garden of Sayings, the Eastern Han Book of Han and the Eastern Jin In Search of the Supernatural. It is transmitted orally from generation to generation among the people of Lianyungang city and its surroundings. Its features are: first, the corroboration of folk legend and historical records; second, the filial-piety thought it embodies, which has a deep basis of popular will; third, its artistic typicality; fourth, its romantic colour. On the third day of the third lunar month each year, said to be the birthday of the filial daughter-in-law, and the fifteenth day of the tenth month, said to be the birthday of the mother-in-law, people from the Jiangsu-Shandong area rush to the Donghai filial daughter-in-law shrine to burn incense and sacrifice, the sacrificial rite solemn and grand and unbroken. The ways and customs of Lianyungang are simple and filial piety is the fashion; opening such local gazetteers as the Longqing Haizhou Gazetteer one finds no lack of records of typical filial figures, and modern and contemporary models of filial conduct appear one after another.
The Filial Daughter-in-Law Zhou Qing Cares for Her Mother-in-Law
The core episode in which Zhou Qing carefully cares for her mother-in-law and her filial piety is known throughout the neighbourhood.
The Unjust Execution of the Filial Daughter-in-Law and the Three-Year Drought
The episode in which the prefect unjustly executes the filial daughter-in-law and the commandery suffers drought for three years.
The Injustice to Dou E
The drama created by the Yuan Guan Hanqing on the model of the Donghai filial daughter-in-law.
Sacrifice at the Donghai Filial Daughter-in-Law Shrine
The custom of sacrificing to the filial daughter-in-law on the third day of the third lunar month and the fifteenth day of the tenth month.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Donghai filial daughter-in-law legend is known to every household in the Lianyungang area; almost everyone can tell it, the main tellers being mostly the ordinary people of northern Jiangsu and southern Shandong, who transmit it by word of mouth and by writing articles.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Local people and institutions such as the filial-culture research society actively devote themselves to transmitting and protecting the Donghai filial daughter-in-law legend, making the past serve the present and carrying forward filial culture, promoting the building of civic morality and strengthening cultural identity, with important cultural value.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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