Guiyue Customs
01 · Historical Records
In the first year of the Dashun reign of the Tang dynasty (890), Chen Chong, patriarch of the Yimen Chen lineage, together with the elders of the six major branches, formulated the Family Law in Thirty-Three Articles, the Family Rules in Sixteen Regulations and the Family Models in Twelve Norms, taking the Confucian aim of "cultivating oneself, regulating one's family, governing the state, and bringing peace to all under heaven" as their purpose. In 1988, the De'an Yimen Chen issued the Yimen Chen Covenant of Love for the Lineage, emphasizing as family instructions for the new era: loving the motherland, respecting one's elders, educating one's children, treating people with goodwill, taking joy in helping others, running the household with diligence and thrift, changing outdated customs, and abiding by law and discipline.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Yimen Chen family-instruction tradition of De'an is a tradition of domestic virtues passed down from generation to generation among tens of thousands of people surnamed Chen and of other surnames in Yimen Chen Village and its surrounding area in Cheqiao Town, De'an County, Jiangxi Province. With filial piety toward parents, honesty and kindness, and diligence and thrift as its main content, it encompasses teachings for lineage descendants on conducting themselves in the world and managing the household and its undertakings, as well as the principles that family and state share one structure, that humanity and nature live in harmony, and that people treat one another in amity. Yimen Chen Village lies in a hilly basin descending eastward from the Mufu mountain range toward the Poyang Lake region, with lush forests, abundant rainfall, and mountains and rivers arranged in pleasing order. The Yimen Chen family-instruction tradition of De'an has a long history. At the end of the Tang dynasty, Chen Boxuan registered his residence in Changle Ward, Taiping Township, De'an County, and gathered a lineage of more than a thousand people; within the households there was no private wealth, and in the kitchens there were no separate fires. Thereafter every member of the lineage observed the family law and strictly kept the family rules, taking the family instructions and family models as the standard of conduct; for generations they practiced loyalty, righteousness, filial piety and fraternal duty, holding fast to the family instruction of the righteous model. After the mid-Ming period, the De'an Yimen Chen transmitted the family instructions chiefly through such forms as "ancestral-hall meetings" (deliberations at the clan temple), "genealogy transmission" (the ceremony of taking turns to keep the genealogy) and "ancestor worship" (reviewing the admonitions of the forebears while offering sacrifices). Since the reform and opening up, the Yimen Chen family-instruction tradition has been further perfected: all forty villages in De'an County that have ancestral halls have carved the Chen family instructions and lineage rules into their walls, notifying lineage members to scrupulously observe the righteous model, and have endowed the family instructions with new content for the new era. On the first day of the Lunar New Year each year, old and young of the whole village, holding burning incense, stand before the ancestors in the ancestral hall and recite the family instructions. In addition, many overseas descendants of the Yimen Chen come to De'an to take part in the annual ancestral-sacrifice activities of the Yimen Chen, providing an opportunity for Yimen Chen descendants at home and abroad and the people of De'an to exchange views and spread the family-instruction tradition.
Chanting the instructions at the new year
On the first day of the new year the whole village lights incense before the ancestors' tablets and chants the family instructions together.
Hall meetings and the passing of genealogies
Since the middle of the Ming the instructions travelled through hall meetings and the rotating custody of the genealogy; receiving the book became an occasion to recite them.
Household law, rules and models
In the first year of the late Tang the head of the clan met the elders of the six branches to draw up thirty-three articles of household law, sixteen rules and twelve models.
Covenants carved on stone
After the family divided, the households remaining at the old seat wrote their covenants into the genealogy and carved them on stone for all to read.
Descendants gathering to honour the ancestors
Descendants from overseas travel back each year for the ancestor rite, making the observance a visible tie binding a scattered clan together.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Yimen Chen family instructions spread from Yimen Chen Village in Cheqiao Town, De'an County, Jiujiang, Jiangxi, as their center; scattered through the hilly basin within several dozen li of the village are a number of interspersed villages of people surnamed Chen and of other surnames, and after the mid-Ming period each continued the tradition separately as the lineage dispersed. The Chen lineage members who remained in the "guardian village" at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming held the family instructions fast through three things: ancestral-hall meetings, genealogy transmission and ancestor worship. Transmitted to the present, all forty villages of De'an County that have ancestral halls carve the Chen family instructions or lineage rules on their walls and notify the lineage clause by clause. The villages do not each speak their own separate tongue: at festivals overseas descendants return to seek their roots, and same-surnamed families scattered across the villages often recognize one another under the name of Yimen Chen, so De'an has become the ancestral home where this branch is most concentrated and whose account is most uniform.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Miao Zaiyan Customs · Guiyue Customs · Guiyue Customs · Guiyue Customs · Guiyue Customs.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
At the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming, the Chen lineage members of De'an's "guardian village", who remained after the dispersal of the lineage, became the main force transmitting the Yimen Chen family-instruction tradition; the "ancestral-hall covenant" they formed was not only entered into the genealogy but also engraved on a stele for public display, so as to instruct the lineage. The Yimen Chen family-instruction tradition of De'an has a fairly broad popular base, with the people of Yimen Chen Village in De'an as its main transmitting group. The Yimen Chen family-instruction tradition of De'an encompasses fine family traditions such as caring for family, country and world, abiding by law and discipline, being honest and upright, passing down the household through farming and learning, and being diligent and thrifty; it has been continually enriched as the times develop, and it is conducive to building a healthy, upward-looking atmosphere of family harmony, neighborly friendship among lineages and social concord. It is of positive significance for strengthening community cultural identity, building a system of social civilization, and practicing the core socialist values.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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