Zhonghe Festival
01 · Historical Records
The name "Zhonghe Festival" is said to have originated in the fifth year of the Zhenyuan reign of the Tang dynasty (789). Legend has it that during the Xianfeng reign of the Qing dynasty, when the peasant rebel army led by Hong Xiuquan marched north to attack Pujin Ford, the Qing general Xia Xin forcibly demolished civilian houses, intending to set fire to the timber as a defense when the Taiping army attacked the city.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The second day of the second lunar month was the ancient "Zhonghe Festival," also called the "Spring Dragon Festival" or the "Green Dragon Festival." At that time, Emperor Dezong (Li Kuo) issued an edict abolishing the festival of the last day of the first month and establishing the Zhonghe Festival in its place. The custom of carrying ice on one's back is one of the activities of the Zhonghe Festival; it circulates in Changwang Village, Yongji City, Shanxi, and is a folk activity performed in ceremonial procession formations. Because of its distinctive performance form and long history of transmission, it is deeply loved by the local people. Xiang Fulu, a rebel army officer and a native of Changwang Village, proposed cutting ice from the Yellow River and carrying blocks of ice on their backs to put out the fire and breach the city; the plan succeeded. After Xiang Fulu retired from the army and returned to farming, he organized the villagers in cutting and carrying ice to reenact the scene of that time; the custom has been passed down from the Xianfeng era to the present. The main performance movements of carrying ice on the back include entering the river, breaking ice, crawling forward, and "invulnerability to swords and spears," fully expressing and promoting the fearless spirit of those who came before. This custom rewrote a military emergency into an annual exercise of the whole village: the ice-cutting and city-breaking of that year took only one night, but moving that ice-cutting daring onto the ice surface of the Yellow River has required the entire settlement to sustain it for many days at a time. The Changwang Village troupe has no full-time performers; its ranks expand and contract with the slack and busy seasons of farm work, with performances most frequent around the Lantern Festival, and the days when the ice is thinnest are precisely when the skill shows best. Though the spectators know there is water beneath their feet, the crowd does not retreat; teams after teams step across the ice surface, turning biting cold into festivity.
Entering the river for ice blocks
The performance opens with ice blocks cut from the Yellow River, raised onto the bank and readied; the men must keep moving at once against the cold.
Crawling to break the ice
The men crawl prone and shatter the thin ice with chest, elbows and knees, forcing a path and reenacting the assault of the past.
The invulnerable column
Bare to the waist and braced against sticks and spears, the column advances to the drums, displaying the fearless bearing of the ancestors.
Performing around the Lantern Festival
The main performances fall around the Lantern Festival, when the ice is still firm and the village is at leisure, and last several days running.
Turning a war episode into a village rite
According to legend the officer Xiang Fulu advised cutting the ice to break the city, and after laying down his armour he led the villagers in reenacting it.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Carrying ice on the back is a form of local folk shehuo (festive street procession), chiefly expressing the martial spirit of "fearing neither heaven nor earth."
Other submitting regions for the same item: Zhonghe Festival.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The performance is easy for ordinary people to take part in and is transmitted as a group; generation after generation in Changwang Village, men of every age can participate. At present, many rural young people leave home to work, and the number of participants is gradually declining; moreover, with climate warming the ice floes of the Yellow River melt easily, so ice blocks must now be made each year with ice-making machines, and the activity is no longer as spectacular as before, with inheritors dwindling. Xiang Jianfeng (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): male, of the Han ethnic group, born in June 1947, a native of Yongji City, Shanxi Province. After starting work, he remained fascinated by carrying ice and baring the torso, and beginning by mobilizing family members and relatives to take part, he has step by step grown and strengthened the ice-carrying troupe. Through further consulting materials, he has come to understand deeply the historical, cultural, and social value of carrying ice and baring the torso. Every year during the Lantern Festival he not only performs himself but also uses his spare time to instruct newcomers, teaching the customs and techniques of carrying ice at venues such as cultural centers, arts centers, and transmission institutes; he has trained a large number of enthusiasts for folk shehuo activities. He is a representative inheritor of the Zhonghe Festival (Yongji Back-Ice Carrying), a fifth-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage item.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Xiangjianfeng 05-3055
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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