Temple Fair

Ⅹ-84Folk CustomsSuzhoushixiangcheng, JiangsuBatch 5 (2021)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

The birthday-honoring ceremony held at Shengtang Temple is called "shangchao" (attending court). According to the Xiangcheng Gazetteer (Xiangcheng Xiaozhi), the origin of the Shengtang Temple Fair dates back to the early Jiajing reign of the Ming dynasty, when the custom of holding the fair already existed in the Xiangcheng area; temples in Suzhou, Kunshan, Changshu, Shanghai and Wuxi along the Yangcheng Lake area responded one after another, and teams from villages and communities attended year after year, so that the spectacle of the fair became famous throughout the Wu region. Its path of formation differs from other places: rather than one temple's incense dominating, dozens of surrounding Earth God temples jointly sustained the fair. By the Qing dynasty, the Jiajing-era custom of holding the fair had evolved into a set routine: each Earth God temple regarded the year's harvest as a tribute, and they successively delivered tribute funds (jiexiang) to the Rensheng Treasure Hall of Shengtang Temple to celebrate the birthday of the Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak. The activities lasted three days, drew tens of thousands of participants, and, because they were held in spring, were historically called the Spring Fair. The birthday-honoring ceremony, called shangchao, is the ritual core of the fair, around which the procession of fair troupes and popular entertainments revolve. The fair has continued for more than five hundred years of unbroken incense offerings, organized entirely by popular initiative, yet it still enjoys heartfelt cultural identification from the people — showing that its survival rests not on official organization but on the breadth of interests involved and the fullness of participation.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

According to the Xiangcheng Gazetteer (Xiangcheng Xiaozhi), as early as the beginning of the Jiajing reign of the Ming dynasty, Xiangcheng (today's Yangcheng Lake Town) had the custom of holding the Shengtang Temple Fair, which gradually won the response of temples in Suzhou, Kunshan, Changshu, Shanghai and Wuxi along the Yangcheng Lake area, creating the spectacle of the fair and making it famous throughout the Wu region. The Earth God temples successively "delivered tribute funds" to the Rensheng Treasure Hall of Shengtang Temple to celebrate the birthday of the Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak. The activities lasted three days, drew tens of thousands of participants, and were historically known as the "Spring Fair". The activities of the Shengtang Temple Fair consist mainly of processions of fair troupes (huiban), the birthday-honoring ceremony, and popular entertainment. From the afternoon of the twenty-seventh day of the third lunar month to the early morning of the twenty-eighth, the local villages first sacrifice to the Earth God in their own village temples; then several thousand villagers and dozens of troupes join together as "fair troupes" and set out from all directions, parading once around the Xiangcheng town area before converging on Shengtang Temple. Along the way, shops large and small set off firecrackers and burn incense and candles, and the roadside audiences number as many as ten thousand. During the fair, the villages carry statues of their local Earth Gods and in turn perform the rite of "kowtowing" to the Eastern Peak Emperor. After the ceremony, folk cultural performances such as dragon-lantern dances, flower-basket carrying and lotus-box (lianxiang) dances all take the stage, preserving the traditional ecology and the diversity of local culture. The fair continues until dusk, when the crowds disperse; on the day, stalls gather around the temple, food and snacks come in a great variety, and street performers and acrobats create a lively scene. Beyond sacrifice, the popular "festive gathering" character of the Shengtang Temple Fair has become increasingly prominent. The Yangcheng Lake Culture Station and the nearly sixty folk performance troupes under it are the main transmitting bodies of the Shengtang Temple Fair. After more than five hundred years of continuous incense offerings, the entirely spontaneously organized Shengtang Temple Fair has won heartfelt cultural identification from the broad masses and has become an important platform and space carrying the traditional spiritual culture of the Yangcheng Lake region. The Shengtang Temple Fair is rich in content; the procession troupes have orderly insignia, and ritual procedures such as street processions, tribute-fund delivery, birthday honors and the "three kowtows" are complete. Folk performance activities with water-country characteristics — such as lifted pavilions and sedan chairs, dragon-lantern dances, lotus-box dances, lake-boat swings, flower-shoulder carrying, and the singing of opera and fishing songs — are all displayed together at the fair. The fair's traditional cultural forms are rich and varied, and its gathering of merchants has effectively promoted employment among the broad public and given a good impetus to the integrated development of culture and tourism in the Yangcheng Lake region.

The morning court for the birthday

The birthday rite known as the morning court is the most formal sequence of the fair, performed before the Rensheng Hall.

Worship of the earth god in village shrines

From the afternoon of the twenty-seventh each village worships its earth god at home before its team sets out for the fair.

Offering the annual levy at the birthday

Village shrines deliver their annual levy to mark the god's birthday, so the three-day fair gives every shrine around the lake a role.

The three prostrations of the delegations

Each village carries its own earth god and bows three times, then the performances begin without a break in the sequence.

The procession through the township

Dozens of delegations circle the township before converging on the temple, shopkeepers lighting crackers along the route.

Water-village performances together

Tower palanquins, lantern dragons, lotus boats, flower baskets and fisher songs fill the fair with the local watery character.

Nearly sixty folk art troupes

Nearly sixty troupes attached to the local cultural station carry the fair, performing alongside stalls and street acts.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The Shengtang Temple Fair is a traditional folk activity that takes the Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak as its object of sacrifice, and is distributed mainly in the Yangcheng Lake basin of Xiangcheng District, Suzhou. The Shengtang Temple Fair meets the spiritual and cultural needs of the local people and plays an irreplaceable role in realizing rural revitalization and the building of spiritual civilization.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

At the same time, dozens of surrounding Earth God temples each have their affiliated fair troupes and folk-skill teams (commonly called "daozi") that cooperate in matters of transmitting the folk activities of the Shengtang Temple Fair.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Temple Fair (Suzhoushixiangcheng, Jiangsu) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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