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Paper published in China Information, 2007
Miaohui, The Temples Meeting Festival in a North China Area
Xudong Zhao and Duran Bell
Abstract
- We examine the multiple purposes and modalities that converge during a circuit of festivals, miaohui, that temples organize in recognition of local gods and which are attended reciprocally by temple representatives from the surrounding area in north China. The festivals involve intense expressions of devotion to one or more deities, while offering an opportunity for representatives of other villages to seek recognition through rather boisterous drumming and prolonged choreographed dancing. We note also the emergence of Mao as a great god whose legacy as Chairman of the CCP is projected in order to legitimate current Party leadership and their policy of Reform while concurrently acting as a powerful denial of those same policies from the perspective of villagers.
Photographs from Nanzhuang, Spring 2005
Photographs from Nanzhuang, Fall 2005
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