Korean Huajiali
01 · Historical Records
The huajia ceremony is a birthday banquet held by Korean ethnic people for elders turning 60, and is an important life-cycle ritual of the Korean ethnic group. Huajia is short for "huajiazi"; 60 years form one huajia cycle, so one's sixtieth birthday is called the year of "huajia." From the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, Korean ethnic people in China migrated into the Mudan River basin, and the huajia ceremony was passed down with them, surviving to this day. This project is of great significance for carrying forward the traditional virtue of respecting and caring for the elderly, strengthening interpersonal exchange, and enriching the lives of the Korean ethnic community.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
When a huajia ceremony is held, the children lay out a longevity banquet for the elder and widely invite relatives, friends, and neighbors to gather together in gratitude for their parents' nurturing. The offering of longevity toasts is the basic rite. As the birthday celebration begins, the master of ceremonies first introduces the life and achievements of the honored elder; the children and guest representatives deliver congratulatory speeches; then the elder's descendants and the gathered relatives and friends, in order of gender and seniority, each present a cup of longevity wine and perform one bow of obeisance. During the banquet, songs and dances are performed to wish the elder health and longevity.
The master of ceremonies recounts a life
Before any wine, the emcee recounts the celebrant's life and migration history to the whole hall.
Wine offered by sex and age order
Wine is offered by sex and generation, each accompanied by a single prostration, so precedence never needs arguing.
Song and dance between courses
After the speeches the table breaks into song and dance, the good wishes carried in the singing.
The birthday rite after settling the Mudanjiang basin
Brought south with the migration, the rite finds distant kin gathered once every sixty years to renew old ties.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The huajia ceremony in the Mudanjiang area took root after Korean ethnic people migrated into the Mudan River basin between the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. The migrated households settled in clusters along the river, and cross-provincial kin were reconnected by rivers and railways; an elder's 60th birthday thus became the region's most concentrated gathering of relatives. The longevity banquet is usually laid out in the family's own courtyard or inside Korean ethnic association halls. Guests include both fellow villagers of the same surname and people who have come specially for the day from nearby townships; because each family's place of origin differs, the manner of the banquet and the tone of the congratulatory speeches vary slightly, but the three elements — offering wine, bowing in obeisance, and song and dance — have never changed.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Korean Huajiali · Korean Huajiali.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The huajia ceremony in Mudanjiang puts one's life and achievements squarely on display: the master of ceremonies first recounts to the assembled guests what the birthday celebrant has done over these decades; then the children and guest representatives offer congratulatory speeches; finally the descendants, in order of gender and seniority, present longevity wine and each performs one bow. This sequence makes the birthday celebration more than just a meal — it is a person's whole life accounted for before the assembled company. Korean ethnic artists often enliven such occasions with song and dance, singing and moving among the tables, dissolving the congratulatory words into sung passages, so that the solemnity of the rite and the liveliness of the music do not conflict. In Mudanjiang this custom also bears a further meaning: it gathers the accents brought by successive waves of migrants into the same day. Most of those speaking at the banquet are elderly people whose pronunciation bears traces of the places they left; ordinarily heard only as dialect, seated at the huajia table they become evidence of shared memory. One banquet is therefore both a family's feast and a narration of several different places of origin.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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