Zhonghe Festival
01 · Historical Records
The 'chaoding' (summit pilgrimage) custom preserved to this day at the Yunqiu Mountain Zhonghe Festival is a folklorized inheritance of this practice. Pilgrims ascending the mountain carry red flags, beat waist drums, sing yangge songs, and raise ceremonial towers as they proceed to the Earth God temple to offer sacrifices and hold deity-contest rites, praying for abundant harvests.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Zhonghe Festival is a traditional Chinese festival. The Yunqiu Mountain Zhonghe Festival takes its name from Yunqiu Mountain, where the festival gathers, and observes the 15th day of the second lunar month as its principal day. Zhonghe culture first arose in the Xia dynasty and had taken shape on a considerable scale by the Zhou dynasty. The Book of Songs, in the 'Shengmin' ode of the Greater Odes section, records that after Houji obtained a bountiful harvest, he held a large-scale sacrifice to the spirits. Yunqiu Mountain was known in ancient times as Kunlun and as the Northern Summit (Beiding). Zhonghe Festival customs prevailed in counties and cities of southern Shanxi (Jinnan) such as Xiangning, Jishan, Xinjiang, Hejin, Wanrong, Xiangfen, Quwo, Yuncheng, and Linfen, and also spread into northwestern Henan and eastern Shaanxi. During the festival, each village community holds its own 'huir' (fair gathering). At the fair people eat fried dough twists, almond cakes, and dried steamed-bread slices, popularly called 'biting the scorpion's tail.' Talismans are pasted beside doorways reading: 'On the second day of the second month the dragon raises its head; scorpions and centipedes go into the gourd.' A picture is drawn of a gourd gathering all five venomous creatures inside. White lime is sprinkled around the houses to summon the dragon and drive away evil. On the 15th day of the second lunar month, people climb the two summits (the Jade Emperor Summit and the Patriarch Summit). Touching the child figurines is a way to pray for conception and for children. Young men court one another, carrying flower baskets balanced on whip handles. Eating 'zaohua' (date-flower cakes) is a way to pray for blessings.
Climbing the summit to contest the god
Villagers climb with red banners, waist drums, yangge songs and the sedan tower to the temple at the summit, racing the god for a bountiful harvest.
The main day, the fifteenth of the second month
The Yunqiushan festival keeps the fifteenth of the second lunar month as its proper day, moving the rite to the moment between preparations and the start of spring farming.
Talismans, the gourd picture and lime lines
Talismans at the door, a gourd drawn with the five poisons inside it and lime sprinkled around the house to draw the dragon away: three defences against early-spring pests and fire.
Biting off the scorpion's tail
Twists, almond cakes and dry bread are eaten as a pun on biting off a scorpion's tail, a crisp mouthful that doubles as the festival's food.
Touching the dolls and the pole-borne basket
On the summit people touch dolls for fertility while the young men stride baskets on whip-handles and exchange glances, devotion and courtship sharing one day.
The village assoiation of the festival
Each village association holds its own gathering, running the same programme and blessings separately, the most economical and durable way of organising the festival.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Yunqiu Mountain branch of the festival is centered on the two summits of the mountain, and its festival geography is entirely different from that of the plains: the principal day is the 15th day of the second lunar month, and mountain people making pilgrimage go either to the Jade Emperor Summit or to the Patriarch Summit, so the slopes naturally form a temporary market. The mountain's ancient names, Kunlun and the Northern Summit, lend the sacrifices a local color of reaching from earth to heaven. Each village community holds its own huir; however long the mountain road, the villages still set out in procession with red flags, waist drums, yangge songs, and raised ceremonial towers, so that the pilgrimage road becomes a moving classroom for folk dance. Southern Shanxi locales such as Xiangning, Jishan, Xinjiang, Hejin, Wanrong, Xiangfen, Quwo, Yuncheng, and Linfen share the same customs, and the festival season also spills over into northwestern Henan and eastern Shaanxi; the 15th day of the second month is thus in effect a common date for all of southern Shanxi.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Zhonghe Festival.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Zhonghe Festival is a folk spiritual ritual pursuing 'centrality, rectitude, and harmony' (zhong zheng ping he). It holds sociological and folkloric value and is a living fossil for the study of festival customs. Viewed from the seasonal calendar, summit climbing, deity contests, prayers for grain, and courtship among the young are all compressed into a single day — a temporal wisdom that calculates agricultural petitions and social intercourse together into one arrangement. The talismans, gourd pictures, and white lime each have their referent: lime is sprinkled around the house to summon the dragon, and the gourd picture is meant to gather in the five venomous creatures; both target the insects stirring in early spring. Customs such as touching the child figurines for offspring, carrying flower baskets on whip handles, and eating date-flowers fall on the young people; the second half of the festival in fact belongs to them.
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)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。