Fanghedeng
01 · Historical Records
The Songhua River river-lantern floating custom is a large-scale folk prayer activity circulating in the Jilin City area of Jilin Province, having evolved from a form of mourning the dead into a ritual for praying for the well-being of the living. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, a shipyard was founded and a naval camp established, and there were often people who fell into the river and drowned. In the late Ming and early Qing, the court established a shipyard in Jilin City, further promoting the development of local politics, military affairs, the economy, and culture, and creating the conditions and soil for the emergence of the Songhua River river-lantern culture. After the Qing dynasty, the shipyard and the naval camp successively withdrew from the historical stage, and the function of floating river lanterns to redeem the dead gradually faded; it served more to release what was in people's hearts and to pray for peace. After 1949, the Songhua River lanterns mainly expressed aspirations such as dispelling illness and disaster, praying for auspiciousness and good fortune, and looking forward to the future.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Jilin City lies in the transition zone from the Changbai Mountains to the Songnen Plain, with a well-developed water system, and is known as the "River City of the North." To steady people's morale, the commander stationed at the shipyard erected a high ritual platform on the Zhongyuan Festival to conduct requiem rites for the dead. To mourn those who had died, people floated river lanterns on the river. According to the Yongji County Gazetteer: "Lanterns were lit and flowed downstream, like ten thousand golden lotuses floating on the water; monks in the boats held their scriptures, and cymbals, drums, and pipes played together; scholars and commoners vied to follow, shoulder to shoulder." Thereafter, every year on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month, people used floating river lanterns to commemorate their ancestors, redeem the dead, and protect the living. Jilin City was once the seat of the Jilin General's headquarters and of the Dasheng Ula Superintendent's Office. The time for floating river lanterns is no longer limited to the Zhongyuan Festival; the Lantern Festival, the Beishan Temple Fair, the Qixi Festival, and the Rime Ice and Snow Festival have all become good days for the people to float river lanterns. The Songhua River river-lantern custom consists of two parts: making the lanterns and floating them. There is a great variety of lantern styles; their making integrates paper-cutting, painting, carving, modeling, and dyeing, and the process steps range from simple to complex, roughly a dozen or more steps in all, including cutting the paper, modeling, moistening, drying, hand dyeing, and pasting. The main materials are white paper, paperboard, string, paste, twigs, colored strips, rice bran, and plant leaves. In recent years, Jilin City has continually used innovative methods to make river lanterns, incorporating regional culture and mainstream culture into their shapes and content, creating unprecedented visual effects and festival appeal. The floating of the Songhua River lanterns is a devout ritual: people paint auspicious patterns on the lanterns, light candles, and make their wishes, letting the lanterns drift away with the current; as they watch the lanterns float into the distance, they place their hopes among the light of heaven, earth, and water, merging their hearts and thoughts with nature and expressing their longing for and pursuit of a better life. The Songhua River river-lantern custom is a folk activity with broad participation by many ethnic groups, marked by strong entertainment value and high ornamental appeal.
The stages of making a river lantern
A lantern passes cutting, shaping, moistening, drying, dyeing and pasting; paper and card form the frame, twine binds it, twigs and strips add buoyancy and a candle is set on top.
The old lantern custom recorded in the Yongji gazetteer
The Yongji gazetteer describes drifting lanterns like golden lotuses while boat monks chant and gongs and drums sound, showing the rite from its first record.
The fifteenth-night release
Around the fifteenth of the seventh month, paper lanterns drift down the Songhua, bearing good wishes for the living as well as rites for the dead.
From absolution to prayer
As the dockyard and naval garrison disappeared, the rite lost its purpose of delivering the dead and turned instead to releasing anxiety and seeking peace.
Release days shared by several festivals
The Lantern Festival, the Beishan temple fair, Qixi and the rime ice festival all became good days for floating lanterns along the river.
The lantern arts festival and new designs
The city's lantern arts festival keeps reshaping local designs, producing array effects on the water that exceed the old metaphors of golden lotuses.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Songhua River river-lantern custom has a long history, a clear transmission lineage, and a wide distribution area; it is concentrated mainly in the upper reaches of the Songhua River basin in Jilin City, with Jilin City itself being the most typical. The Songhua River Lantern Culture Festival held locally year after year is an extension and expansion of the traditional river-lantern floating custom.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
After this heritage project was entered on the provincial-level list, the local government intensified its protection efforts, and representative inheritors led by personal example, organizing the establishment of the Songhua River Lantern Art Association to contribute to the inheritance and dissemination of Songhua River lantern culture. After the lanterns were entered on the provincial list, the local government allocated protection funds and organized the lantern makers into the Songhua River Lantern Art Association, giving them work to do throughout the year. The craft of making lanterns thus changed from a rush job before the festival into a year-round trade that always had people to carry it on: a family holding a wedding or funeral that wanted to float lanterns could ask the association for makers, and a school wanting an experience in paper-modeling and paper-cutting could also borrow craftsmen from the association. With the lantern-making trade gathered in one place, the lanterns that floated for only a few days each year were finally connected to everyday life.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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