Source: People's Daily - Fujian Channel Original draft
"Drunk" In the East Mountains of Zhangzhou. People's Daily Lan Zhifei clip
Located on the island of Dongshan Guandi Temple. Photo by Chen Yu
Since the 1990s, during the annual Guandi Cultural Tourism Festival on both sides of the Taiwan Strait (Dongshan, Fujian), Guandi believers from both sides of the Strait and overseas have dressed in ancient costumes, bowed, and performed three prostrations and nine prayers facing the Guandi Temple in Dongshan, recreating the grand scene of ancient sacrifices.
This scene is the highlight of the Guandi Cultural Tourism Festival on both sides of the taiwan strait (Dongshan, Fujian), and it is almost the most lively scene of the year in Dongshan County.
Dongshan County is the sixth largest island in China and the second largest island in Fujian Province. With a history of more than 600 years, the Guandi Temple of Dongshan stands on the island, facing the Taiwan Strait, surrounded by mountains and seas, and is magnificent.
According to historical records, in the second year of Tang Dynasty (686), the Tang generals Chen Zheng and Chen Yuanguang led 64 soldiers with the surname to explore southern Fujian, establish Zhangzhou, and garrison Dongshan County. In order to appease the soldiers, Chen Zheng, Chen Yuanguang and his father and son brought incense from their hometowns. The widespread spread of Emperor Guan's faith in Dongshan County began in the 20th year of Ming Hongwu (1387). At that time, Zhou Dexing, the Marquis of Jiangxia, led troops to Dongshan County, built Tongshan City and set up a water village to prevent Wokou, and built the Guan Gong Ancestral Hall to appease the mood of the officers and soldiers.
Today, in Dongshan County, almost every household is dedicated to Guan Gong.
Dongshan Guandi Temple is the ancestral temple of many Guandi temples in Taiwan. Photo by Liu Hantian
"The marine economy is a pillar industry here, and most of the people are engaged in fishery production. In the past, high-risk maritime operations made the people here more in need of spiritual protection, which may be an important reason why the Guandi culture took root here. Chen Liqun, an expert in literature and history in Dongshan County, said that the core of Guandi culture is loyalty, due to the particularity of the profession, fishermen especially pay attention to morality and advocate unity, so Dongshan Guandi culture has integrated many marine cultural elements.
The local pride is also that the Dongshan Guandi Temple is among the four major Guandi temples in China. This is due to the fact that the Guandi Temple in Dongshan is the ancestral temple of Xiangyuan ancestral temple of nearly a thousand Guandi temples in Taiwan, and it is also the birthplace of Taiwan's Guandi faith, showing that the culture of the two sides of the strait has the same roots and origin.
In this regard, Chen Liqun told such a past event: In the early 1990s, the Guandi Temple in Dongshan welcomed a group of Taiwanese guests who were looking for the Xiangyuan Ancestral Temple for the Guandi Temple in Taiwan. Previously, they had been searching the coastal areas of the mainland for a long time, but they had not been able to find results. Dongshan Guandi Temple is not large, with an area of only more than 680 square meters, but it is a folk art museum in southern Fujian that integrates porcelain carving, wood carving and stone carving. But what really caught the attention of this group of Taiwanese guests was a couplet.
"Counting three points to help Yan Han, Ping Wu cut Wei, hard work, not a life's work" "Zhi Cun Unification, Zuo Ximing, Demon Fu Yu, Wei Ling Pi Zhen, only the day of Jing Zhong". This couplet gives high praise to Guan Yu's life, and its author is The Ming Dynasty Wuyingdian Scholar and Great Calligrapher Huang Daozhou. Seeing this couplet, the Taiwanese guests felt that this was the mystery they were looking for.
Dongshan Guandi Temple is a folk art museum in southern Fujian that integrates porcelain carving, wood carving and stone carving. Photo by Liu Hantian
It turns out that in the oldest Guandi Temple in Taiwan, there is exactly the same couplet. This couplet is unique to Dongshan County and has not been passed on to other parts of the mainland - the author Huang Daozhou is a native of Dongshan County, and his former residence is next to the Guandi Temple.
After the inheritance relationship was determined, the relationship between Dongshan Guandi Temple and Taiwan Guandi Temple was officially released. Since then, Guandi Temples across Taiwan have frequently sent delegations to Dongshan County to worship ancestors and incense.
"It's like flying a kite, even though the kite is floating outside, the end of the pulling line is on the mainland." Chen Liqun said that the root of Taiwan's Guandi belief lies in the mainland, which also makes the Dongshan Guandi Temple more and more appealing in cross-strait cultural exchanges.
In 1996, Dongshan Guandi Temple was listed as a national key cultural relics protection unit, and in 2017, it was awarded the first batch of "Fujian Province Exchange Base to Taiwan". Nowadays, Dongshan Guandi Temple has successfully joined the joint application project for Guansheng Cultural and Historical Sites, and the application for heritage is carried out in an orderly manner.
Dongshan County, on the other hand, borrowed the "Guandi" as a bridge and used "tourism" as the medium, and has held 28 consecutive Guandi Cultural Tourism Festivals since the early 1990s, becoming the Taiwan-related cultural festival with the largest number of sessions and the longest duration on the mainland side, attracting many people from all walks of life on both sides of the strait to Dongshan County to seek roots and ancestors, travel and vacation, and invest in business. With the gradual improvement of specifications, since the 20th session, the Guandi Cultural Tourism Festival has been included in the sub-projects of the Straits Forum, becoming a key project of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council for exchanges with Taiwan, and also an important link for cross-strait tourism, culture, sports, ocean and economic cooperation.