Guiyue Customs
01 · Historical Records
The Qian Family Instructions began with the testament (the Eight Admonitions) left by Qian Liu, king of the Wuyue Kingdom in the Five Dynasties period; after successive generations of Qian descendants continually supplemented it, in the 1920s Qian Wenxuan gathered the distinguishing features of the family instructions of the various Qian branches, producing the Qian Family Instructions in its present form.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Qian family instructions and family teaching refers to the code of conduct, based on family admonitions, by which successive generations of the Qian family since the Five Dynasties period have educated their descendants. Qian family teaching refers to the household instruction and family tradition formed by the various branches, following the ancestral admonitions, since the time of Qian Liu. The basic content of the Qian family instructions and family teaching is "serving the country well, cultivating virtue and refining one's character, and honoring culture and learning." It repeatedly warns descendants that serving the country well is the core: "Do not seek profit for yourself alone; profit that benefits all under heaven must be pursued." In spring and autumn the family instructions and teaching are further recited, explained and reinforced through ancestral sacrifices—what is called "lighting incense and candles, burning spirit money, and reading the sacrificial address." The relevant content of the family instructions and teaching is recorded in full or in part in the family genealogies; it is also set down in books and plaques commemorating the deeds of illustrious ancestors, engraved in stone for important events, or implicitly embodied in architecture such as pagodas and temples.
The eight admonitions
The family teaching begins with the eight admonitions of Qian Liu, putting service to the state first: private gain is not to be sought, but what benefits all is.
Reading the family instructions on new and full moons
The teaching is fixed in place and time, read aloud in the ancestral hall on the first and fifteenth of each lunar month.
Spring and autumn ancestor rites
Twice a year the instructions are renewed within the ancestor rite by lighting incense, burning offerings and reading the sacrificial text.
Genealogies, plaques and steles
The instructions survive in genealogies, in plaques written by worthies, in steles carved with notable deeds, and even hidden in the design of towers and temples.
From charitable estates to funds
Modern practice widens the venues to libraries and replaces charitable estates with privately raised funds; the text is unchanged even as its vehicles are renewed.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
This heritage project takes the Qian family as its vehicle and is mainly distributed in the Jiangnan region where the family is concentrated; in Shanghai it is chiefly found in Jinshan, Jiading, Zhabei and Minhang, involving a population of about 120,000.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Miao Zaiyan Customs · Guiyue Customs · Guiyue Customs · Guiyue Customs · Guiyue Customs.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
From Qian Liu's testament and the Lin'an genealogy-based family rules to the Qian Family Instructions, the core values have descended in one continuous line. The main venue for transmitting the Qian family instructions and teaching is the ancestral hall, and the usual time is the first and fifteenth day of each lunar month. The principal transmitting groups of the Qian family instructions and teaching in Shanghai are the Jinshan Qian, Jiading Qian, Zhabei Qian, Minhang Qian and Pudong Zhuang (Qian) lineages. In Shanghai, transmission of the Qian family instructions and teaching has been innovated in line with the characteristics of the times: for example, transmission relies on, but is not limited to, the ancestral hall; the form of recitation has been improved, with recitation sites including clan ancestral halls and the Qian Xuesen Library; privately raised funds have been used to establish foundations in place of the charitable estate (yizhuang); research on family instructions and teaching for the new era has been promoted, academic works published, leading Qian kin nationwide in spreading the family instructions and transmitting family teaching and in exploring the contemporary value of the Qian Family Instructions; and families are encouraged to teach by word and example, including by setting up family WeChat groups. After a thousand years of transmission, the Qian family instructions and family teaching, together with other traditions, have become the basic content of the Qian family's ancestral-hall sacrifices and family education. This heritage project embodies the ethical pursuit of Chinese people for cultivating virtue, attending to family teaching and keeping the family harmonious, along with the value of family and country forming one body; it has fostered a cultural atmosphere in which learning is passed down through poetry and books, helps form a sound atmosphere of scholarship, family tradition and public conduct, and is of positive significance for improving grassroots governance and advancing the building of a harmonious society.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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