Folk Beliefs and Customs

Ⅹ-85Folk CustomsXiamenshisiming, FujianBatch 5 (2021)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

After Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) died in 1662, as temples great and small for worshipping him, such as the Zheng Family Ancestral Temple and the Kaishan King Temple, were successively built, his personality was gradually elevated to divine status, and the Yanping Prince belief thereby arose and developed continuously, continuing to the present day. The Zheng Chenggong belief in Xiamen began in the late nineteenth century with the establishment of the Yanping Prince Shrine on Hongshan (Phoenix Hill). Siming District of Xiamen held its first Zheng Chenggong Cultural Festival in 2009; while worshipping Zheng Chenggong, it also injected a large number of traditional Chinese cultural elements, such as odes to Zheng Chenggong, large-scale literary and artistic street parades, and procession troupes (zhentou).

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Zheng Chenggong is a national hero in Chinese history who defeated foreign invasion and safeguarded the territorial sovereignty of the motherland, and he is worshipped and loved by the people. Zhu Youlang, the Yongli Emperor of the Southern Ming, conferred on Zheng Chenggong the title of "Prince of Yanping." Its forms of expression are, broadly speaking, the recitation of sacrificial texts, the erection of sheds and staging of operas, and the celebration of his birthday with offerings to the deity. The Xiamen Yanping Prince Shrine is an old-style southern Fujian dwelling built against a hill, located on the south side of Hongshan Park on Siming South Road, Siming District, immediately adjacent to the Jiaxing Fort ruins, and forms part of the Zheng clan's Xingyang Ancestral Temple in Xiamen. The Zheng Chenggong Cultural Festival, an important element of the Yanping Prince belief, has been successfully held eleven times in Xiamen, Nan'an, and Taiwan, with several thousand participants at each session and numbers increasing year by year. At the same time, Xiamen holds numerous sacrificial activities related to Zheng Chenggong every year, actively transmitting and developing the Yanping Prince belief. The Yanping Prince belief is a down-to-earth folk activity with a very vivid grassroots character. It includes the forms of ordinary folk belief, but is more richly infused with history and culture, and especially with intangible cultural heritage content, giving it a uniquely rich substance. The Yanping Prince belief has become an important spiritual bond and cultural bridge for people-to-people exchanges across the Taiwan Strait, and plays a positive role in promoting the healthy development of cross-strait relations and the peaceful reunification of the motherland.

The annual rite at the Prince of Yanping shrine

The old-style shrine beside Hongshan Park on Siming South Road, near the Jiaxing stockade site, is the chief seat of the practice in Xiamen.

Chanting the rite, staging opera and blessings

The practice takes three shapes: chanting the sacrificial text, raising a temporary stage for opera offerings, and blessing believers on their birthdays.

The modern additions of the cultural festival

Since the first cultural festival held by Siming District in 2009, recitations, street parades and martial arrays have been added to the rite.

Shrines and memorials linking Fujian and Taiwan

Shrines and memorials built by Fujian and Taiwan kin associations keep the practice alive outside official events.

From ancestral shrine to divinity

As family and founding-king shrines multiplied after his death, the figure was raised to divine status; Xiamen's rite dates from the shrine built at Hongshan in the late nineteenth century.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The Yanping Prince belief is a folk belief whose principal object of admiration and worship is Zheng Chenggong; it is distributed mainly in Zheng Chenggong's hometown and the regions where he was active. The important sites of activity are the Yanping Prince shrines at Xiamen and at Shijing, Nan'an, Quanzhou, among other places, and the transmitting groups consist mainly of members of the Zheng clan at home and abroad and devotees of Zheng Chenggong.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

At present, under the guidance and support of local governments, the transmission and protection of the Yanping Prince belief has accumulated a certain amount of experience, and the Zheng Chenggong temples and memorial halls spontaneously established by the people of Fujian and Taiwan are constantly increasing in number. The Yanping Prince belief is a folk activity jointly transmitted by the people of Fujian and Taiwan. At every Zheng Chenggong Cultural Festival and sacrifice at Zheng Chenggong temples, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait carry out diverse economic activities, as well as related academic symposiums on Zheng Chenggong and tourism projects, effectively promoting economic and cultural exchange between the two places.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

Wu Jishan 05-3019
Xu Shunwei 05-3020
Huang Guanghui 05-3021
Chen Jikun 05-3022
Sinapinchu 05-3023
Liu Shimei 05-3024
Zhang Qingming 05-3025
Zheng Quanguang 05-3026
Ye Da 05-3027
Li Yaohui
Luo Shengzong

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Folk Beliefs and Customs (Xiamenshisiming, Fujian) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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