Fresh air, good season yellow picked from all over the village! The most willing to choose during this primary election is the event that was announced in advance or contacted by tourism development, to be able to experience the style of enduring men’s clothing.
A never-ending, province-wide carnival
When more people are tired of the homogenization and commercialization of festivals, Guizhou people can still draw the original fun from it. Nearly a thousand festivals of various sizes fill the 365 days of Guizhou.
The long table feast is staggered, and the bizarre mountain and wild delicacies are full of food; the music of the reeds is melodious, and the golden pheasant dance is accompanied by crisp silver ornaments; the mysterious shouting for rain and changing flowers and herbs are still Dong The daily life of the family; the “Flower-faced Dragon” on the Lantern Festival and the Ave Maria on Christmas Eve record the alternative continuation of foreign cultures in the hinterland of Miaojiang.
If you want to experience the eccentricities, you can go to the hinterland of Dong Township: Huanggang’s Shouting Festival and Basha’s Swing Festival are eye-opening, as well as Xiaohuang’s Dong Song Festival and Wanzhai’s Stepping Song Hall. . Handicraft lovers are more suitable for festivals in the hinterland of Miaojiang. At Shidong Sisters Festival and Leishan Miao Year, Miao women go out in costumes and compete for beauty. It is also the Dragon Boat Festival, and different ethnic groups have different ways of celebrating: the Miao people in Shidong row a canoe dragon boat race, and the Gelao people in Shiqian have the grand scene of “Hundred Dragons Dance in the Sky”.
What festivals can I play in Guizhou recently?
November 9 Xijiang·Guzang Festival
If you hear about the upcoming Kuzang Festival when you are in a Dong village in Miao Township, then ask the boss for two more days of leave. Don’t miss this big day that happens once in 13 years.
The Guzang Festival is the most solemn ancestor worship ceremony for the Miao and Dong people, also known as the Guzang Festival and the Drum Zang Festival. In terms of scale, “Miao Nian” can only be regarded as a simplified version of the Kuzang Festival. According to the original beliefs of the Miao people, ancestral spirits are attached to the drum, so wooden drums are made to worship ancestors. Each time the Kuzang Festival will last for 3 consecutive years, namely drumming, standing drums and Tibetan drums. Among them, the year of the Tibetan drum was the most solemn, and clansmen from surrounding counties and districts would be invited to celebrate together.
After the founding of New China, the celebration time and activities of the Kuzang Festival were simplified. Some villages concentrated all the celebration activities on the Tibetan drum ceremony in the third year. It was difficult to see the scene of slaughtering cattle. ~2 weeks. This year’s Kuzang Festival will be held in Kaijue Village, Xijiang Town on November 9. There will be a series of grand events, but there will also be corresponding traffic controls. Please pay attention to relevant information when you drive.
The Xijiang Qianhu Miao Village located in Nangui Village is also the largest Miao Village in the world, with verdant valleys, dense stilted buildings, and a night view like a starry sky. , The figures of the six animals wandering the streets… Even if it is not the festival season, many of your imaginations about the customs of ethnic minorities in the southwest can be satisfied in this “large-scale theme park”.
Leishan·Miao Year in the middle and early November
The green mountains and beautiful waters at the foot of Leigong Mountain are matched with the antique-style blocks of the city. No wonder Leishan shouted the slogan of “the most beautiful county in China”.
The Leishan Miao Year usually falls on the first 90th day of October in the lunar calendar, which is the first ten days of November in the Gregorian calendar (this year on October 31st), and there will be a New Year’s carnival for about a week. At this time, all Miao villages in Leishan County will send teams to parade the streets in costumes and participate in various folk activities such as song and dance performances.
Then they went back to the stockade, slaughtered cattle and pigs, boiled fish and fried poultry, and of course, there were many fine wines. Each village also has its own specific date for the Chinese New Year. You can inquire about it in the county seat. With the return of a certain performing team, a more authentic New Year will be celebrated.
If you go to Leishan at other times, you can go to the small square (Jiefang Road, near Yongle Road) on Chen and Xu days to go to the market and see the sales.
Langde Xiazhai
The lively scene of bamboo ware, mountain treasures and thrush. Paika Miao Village, 3 kilometers south of the county seat, has a long tradition of making reeds. There are several reeds workshops in the village, and you will hear reeds from time to time when you walk in the village.
Mid-to-early November Sandu · Aquarium Festival
Few people stay overnight in Leishan. If you feel unfulfilled, you can go to the nearby Langde Village. The Bala River outside is a very spiritual river in southeastern Guizhou. It absorbs all the streams at the northwest foot of Leigong Mountain, and finally fills the Qingshui River near Shidong. There are many beautiful Miao villages hidden in the mountains on both sides of the Bala River. Although most of them are now a mix of new brick houses and old wooden buildings, but the familiarity of chickens and dogs and the traffic on the streets, you can still vaguely feel the atmosphere of the old days.
The Duan Festival is the New Year of the Shui people. It is a festival for the Shui people to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new, to celebrate the harvest, and to worship ancestors. The Shui Zu New Year spans a very long time. From December of the Shui calendar to February of the following year (the eighth and ninth month of the lunar calendar), starting from the first day of Hai, each village of the Shui clan takes turns to celebrate the festival in seven batches, lasting at least 49 days in total.
Fish-wrapped chives are an indispensable offering during the Duan Festival. The New Year’s Eve dinner and the first day’s breakfast must avoid meat, but not fish and shrimp. Beating bronze drums, dancing bronze drums, and reed dance are traditional entertainment activities in the Duan Festival. The most lively is the Duanpo horse racing (held on the hillside near the villages of each Duan Festival). The uniqueness of the aquarium horse racing is that it rides naked. , i.e. no saddle is used.
The Mao Festival is an aquarium festival as important as the Duan Festival. Due to the similar nature and form, no aquatic settlement will celebrate two festivals at the same time, and the stockades that celebrate the Mao Festival will no longer celebrate the Duan Festival. The Mao Festival is commonly known as “borrowing the Mao”. The theme of the festival is that young men and women find their sweethearts through antiphonal songs, also known as the “Song Festival”.
“Aquarium”
The Shui people originated in Suixian County, Henan Province. They were first called “Sui” and later replaced by “Shui”. After several migrations due to wars, they finally settled in the upper reaches of the Duliu River at the junction of Guizhou and Guizhou. Today, they mainly live in southern Guizhou and Guizhou. southeast. Aquarium has its own calendar, language and writing, which shows its profound heritage.
November 28th Congjiang Xiaohuang Dage Festival
Xiaohuang is a famous hometown of Dong songs. You can almost see the photo of the thousand-person Dong song chorus on any tourist promotion photos in Guizhou. The shooting location is at the Drum Tower Square in Xiaohuangzhaikou.
Every November 28th is the annual Dong Song Festival in Congjiang. The local government will hold a series of literary and artistic activities in the county seat. As the main venue, Xiao Huang is about to put on the most grand performance. It is the best time for you to enjoy the chorus of thousands of Dong songs, but you must also be prepared for a hard-to-find room.
For the Dong people, singing seems to be an innate talent, and it is also an essential skill for making friends and getting married. It has become the best carrier of Dong culture.
Wu Rongde
Xiaohuang Dong Culture Promoter
In addition to the big song festival, the lively Spring Festival is “more or less”, and everyone will return to their hometowns to reunite. From the fourth day of the new year to the first month, every day at three or four o’clock in the afternoon, there will be two male and female singing groups singing in the Drum Tower. Pansa Yinhua, the non-hereditary inheritor of Dong nationality big song, will also sing with everyone. In the first month, villages will also “eat lovesickness”, that is, come together to eat, drink, and sing opposite songs. At this time, Xiaohuang, everyone can participate in these activities.
December 24 Shimenkan·Christmas Eve Service
In 1904, the British missionary, Rev.Samuel Pollard, arrived at Shimenkan and began to spread Christianity. He not only opened a church, founded the earliest leprosy hospital in China, but also built the first middle school in southwestern Miaojiang, and invented the Miao language based on the elements of the local large flower and Miao clothing patterns, and pioneered the bilingual teaching of English and Miao language.
Today, the Miao people in Shimenkan still believe in Christianity. Although the scene of “cultural holy land” is no longer there, many relics still remain.
Every Sunday at 13:00 during the worship time, Miao believers from far and near villages will come in full costumes, read the Bible aloud in Miao language, and sing hymns. Every year on the evening of December 24, there will be a larger-scale worship service here, and non-Christians can also participate.
Going to Guizhou at other times is just as exciting!
If the festival is not over, it will turn the same village into two completely different worlds. In the villages of Guizhou, there are nearly a hundred festivals in a year, which seems overwhelming, but when you come to the local area, you may be overwhelmed – most traditional festivals are not held on a regular basis according to the Gregorian calendar, plus complicated calculation methods And “unforeseen circumstances”, luck may be the thing you need most. Fortunately, there are still a lot of important festivals to grasp.
The 15th day of the third lunar month, Taijiang Sisters Festival
As one of the counties with the largest proportion of the Miao ethnic group in southeastern Guizhou, Taijiang, like Leishan, claims to be “the first county of the Miao ethnic group”. During the Sisters Festival, the carnival in Shidong Town, which is under its jurisdiction, will also spread to the county seat: thousands of people walk the streets, thousands of people play drums and other activities.
The Shidong Sisters Festival is held from the 15th to the 17th day of the third lunar month in the lunar calendar. Young men and women traveling in costumes sing songs, eat sisters’ meals, and exchange tokens. This most solemn festival in Taijiang County is known as “the oldest Oriental Valentine’s Day”. Although it has added a bit of a vulgar atmosphere in recent years, this snowy and silver national costume show will definitely make everyone feast for the eyes. . This is the origin of the most classic and most famous broken thread embroidery in Miao embroidery. It takes four or five years to make a piece of clothing.
The Canoe Dragon Boat Festival on the 25th day of the fifth lunar month is another great time to visit Shidong, from the canoe itself to the races on the Qingshui River. On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, Taijiang County celebrates the Lantern Festival with “Dragon Dance and Hushua”, which will also make you feel that your trip is worthwhile.
Basha Swing Festival on the 13th day of the sixth lunar month
Basha, pronounced locally as “biā shā”, in Hmong language means a place with lots of vegetation. People come to see Basha’s ancient and mysterious way of life-wearing muskets, shaving their heads with sickles, and offering tree sacrifices to tree burials. These customs and habits are indeed still passed down in the stockade to this day, but it can be seen from the charging situation that this place is already a fairly mature scenic spot.
Every year in the middle of June of the lunar calendar, in addition to the tradition of “eating new” in Basha, the unique swing festival is also not to be missed – this is the local “Valentine’s Day”. Usually on the 13th day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar, young men and women from the village gather on the hillside near Shoupeping, and swing between the steep hillsides with the help of two thick hemp ropes hanging from trees. In order to show their courage to their sweethearts, they can even swing up to forty or fifty meters above the ground, which makes the viewer’s heart beat faster.
Huanggang Shouting Festival on the 15th day of the sixth lunar month
Continue northwards 6 kilometers from Xiaohuang to Huanggang. If you come to Huanggang from Xiaohuang, you will be impressed by the wooden houses here, and you will be surprised that there are 5 drum towers in this stockade of more than 300 households, and each of them is quaint and dignified, and the interior carvings are exquisite.
The Shouting Festival is a unique festival in Huanggang. The Dong language “Xie Sa Xiang” means offering sacrifices to Lei Po, in order to sacrifice to the sky and ask for rain. The fifteenth day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar is the most lively day of the year. All men, women and children gather in the heart of the village to surround the rooftop, blowing reeds, dancing and singing, which is an experience that is difficult to get in other Dong villages. The ghost masters will toast the gods, play drums, chant, and talk to the gods in the Dong language under the shouting roof.
After the ceremony, a long table banquet was set up according to the house clan, and they ate together with the foreign guests who participated in the event and sang toast songs to each other. In the evening, there are drum tower singing and other entertainment activities. It will rain within a day after shouting the sky – such a magical phenomenon has been passed down by word of mouth, and many tourists have witnessed it.
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