Experience ethnic minority sports such as high legs, spinning tops, and board shoes, visit the Longmen Intangible Cultural Heritage Market, taste the "Longmen Banquet" of the Yao Nationality Long Table, and participate in the "Fire Dog Dance" bonfire party... This is a new immersive rural cultural tourism activity in Lantian Yao Township, Longmen County in the past six months, integrating rich and colorful ethnic culture and intangible cultural heritage, allowing citizens and tourists to experience the "most dazzling national style", which is quite well received.
The person who planned to launch this amusement project was Liu Weicong, a post-90s generation who returned to his hometown to start a business in Longmen Lantian, and a Yao guy who loves to sing. He said that he grew up in Lantian Yao Township, and it is the feelings and responsibilities of his generation to excavate, sort out and spread the Lantian Yao culture and make it glow with new charm.
The young man of the Yao family returned to his hometown to start a business and make a living from music
Lantian Yao Township is the only ethnic minority township in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, with strong ethnic customs, not only has a beautiful natural ecology, but also contains rich humanistic customs, many ancient buildings and intangible cultural heritage are conserved and inherited here, and transformed into cultural and tourism resources, such as the "Fire Dog Dance" activity that integrates dance, singing, sacrifice and other elements, is the first batch of intangible cultural heritage projects in Guangdong Province, which is regularly staged in the Mid-Autumn Festival every year, attracting tourists from the Pearl River Delta to participate in the experience.
Liu Weicong was born in Xiaodong Village, Lantian in 1994, and the genes of Yao compatriots who can sing and dance have been inherited from him, and he likes to sing since he was a child. He has also participated in many "Fire Dog Dance" activities, and is deeply inspired by the enthusiasm of the people in Yao Township. Since high school, Liu Weicong, who lives in the school, began to pick up the guitar to chase his music dream, often practicing playing and singing in the dormitory and classroom, eager to hold the guitar to sleep every day, and also asked the teacher for guitar knowledge. Liu Weicong stepped into the university campus with a guitar on his back. After graduating from university, Liu Weicong engaged in music teaching in Shenzhen, but not long after, the free impulse given to him by music and art made him give up his stable job in Shenzhen and resolutely return to his hometown Longmen for development. The year was 2016, and at the age of 22, he felt that the seeds of music could be stretched more freely and firmly in the mountains and rivers of Longmen. He sang in bars, performed by the river, and formed bands with a group of like-minded young people.
When the music circle around him took shape, Liu Weicong opened a philharmonic piano store near Dongbi Cultural Square in Longmen County, selling guitars and playing music, and at the same time gathered a group of young music teachers to carry out training on guitars and other musical instruments.
▲Liu Weicong of the "Fire Dog Dance" activity (the one who holds the microphone in the middle)
Liu Weicong, who is thin and has light in his eyes, sings Yaoxiang songs with a Lantian Yao accent between conversations, clear and clean, like a natural sound, and has won the outstanding singer of the 8th Longmen "Top Ten" Singer Competition, and has become a well-known musician in Longmen. As a result, he became the singer of Lantian "Dancing Fire Dog" songs.
On weekdays, Liu Weicong actively participates in the performance of the rural public welfare evening, and participates in the planning of the "Fire Dog Dance" activity and the harvest festival of the Yao nationality in Lantian Nationality. Seeing that the living environment and hardware facilities in his hometown have been greatly improved, Liu Weicong is sincerely happy. But he also saw that in addition to the "Fire Dog Dance" activity, the Lantian Yao people were more famous, but other customs and customs had not been well inherited. "For example, when my grandparents were young, every time there was a traditional festival, the people of Yao Township, who had a bold personality and dared to fight to win, would bring 'Zhantuo' to fight each other and connect with each other." Liu Weicong said that these interesting play experience projects carry the characteristic culture of ethnic minorities, and if they are activated and used well, they can leverage the development of local cultural tourism.
Activate and utilize intangible cultural heritage items such as "Dancing Fire Dog".
Therefore, Liu Weicong visited Lantian Village, collected historical information on ethnic culture, and at the same time went to the places where Yao compatriots live inside and outside the province to visit and study, and find ways to combine Yao culture and cultural tourism activities. He also established Guangdong Yao Township Tourism Planning Co., Ltd., and invited a number of Lantian Yao friends to join, and he wanted to do a meaningful thing: with "Dancing Fire Dog" as the core, he launched Lantian Yao Township characteristic cultural experience activities to restore the real life and spiritual outlook of the Lantian Yao people.
After some rehearsals and preparations, on the afternoon of May 20 this year, the characteristic cultural experience activity of Lantian Yao Township was held for the first time in the Cultural Square of Xiaodong Village, Lantian for the first time, attracting a large number of villagers and tourists to participate.
At the event site, there are experience links of traditional ethnic minority sports in Lantian such as stepping on high feet, playing tops, and racing on board shoes, which is not only an interesting duel, but also a happy experience. At the same time, the Longmen intangible cultural heritage market was set up at the scene, with rice cakes, depicting Longmen peasant paintings, grinding tofu, weaving "ribbons", making large cages, pinching mugwort and other Longmen intangible cultural heritage items to exhibit and perform, in addition, the site provided booths for the surrounding villagers to display and sell agricultural products, which was convenient for tourists and increased the income of villagers.
▲The "Fire Dog Dance" activity planned by Liu Weicong made tourists and villagers happy together
The evening breeze is blowing, the night is gentle, and the Yao long table banquet is coming as scheduled, which is the way for the Yao compatriots to feast relatives and friends during the festival, and now it has become an innovative model for tourists to taste Longmen's special tourist food - "Longmen Banquet". In addition to delicious and healthy food, rice crackers, soybean milk, boiled peanuts, tofu flowers, camellia and other special delicacies are also provided on site, allowing tourists to feast.
After the dinner, the bonfire was lit and the "Fire Dog Dance" bonfire party was grandly staged. Fire paparazzi, fire dog male, catch bloodworms, catch white worms, plant vegetables for the New Year and winter winter..."The Yao girl is full of incense, singing simple songs, taking vigorous steps, forming a "fire dog" team to meander and dance... Led by the Yao compatriots, the tourists took the turmeric leaves, tied them to their chests, waists and arms, and experienced a "fire dog" dress up and dance.
Enjoy the singing and dancing of the Yao people and drink the rice wine of Yao Township. After the "Fire Dog Dance" activity, it was the duet of Yaojia folk songs to express their love for life and praise for their home and country. Lantian Yao people have a kind of hospitality of the highest etiquette "high mountains and flowing water", the scene of tourists volunteered, took a big bowl and drank it all, not only the enthusiasm and joy, but also the customs of the Yao family. When it came to the performance of "The Married Girl", the sisters of Yaoxiang put on the "wedding dress", picked up rice wine, chicken coops, and box baskets, like a mighty wedding team, among which the "belt boy" was hand-woven by the traditional Lantian and used to tie quilts, pillows and other dowries when the bride got married, with bright colors.
A series of cultural and sports activities such as lion dance and bamboo line dance were also arranged on site. The applause and cheers of the tourists came and went, enthusiastically participated in it, sang and danced with the Yao compatriots, and immersed themselves in the rich national customs.
Create an immersive brand of rural cultural tourism activities
Liu Weicong said that the Lantian Yao Township characteristic cultural experience activity is a new cultural tourism project, which has its special features, such as the restoration of Lantian stilts, spinning tops, board shoes and other ethnic minority sports and the Yao long table banquet, in the "Fire Dog Dance" activity to increase tourists dressed up "Fire Dog", bamboo line dance, mountain song duet, Yao women "marriage" performance and other links, at the same time equipped with Longmen intangible cultural heritage project performances, village markets, integration of national culture and intangible cultural heritage, in the cultural value of mining economic value.
From the innovation of cultural and sports programs to the in-depth integration of culture and tourism, the excellent traditional Chinese culture has continued in the protection and inheritance, and released unlimited potential in creative transformation and innovative development. Just like the bonfire in the "Fire Dog Dance" activity, it was lit to attract everyone's attention, and the new cultural tourism program of Lantian Yao Township characteristic cultural experience activity has attracted wide attention.
▲The "Fire Dog Dance" activity planned by Liu Weicong made tourists and villagers happy together
Starting from the first session in Xiaodong Village, the characteristic cultural experience activities of Lantian Yao Township have successively entered other villages in Lantian and even entered many well-known hot spring scenic spots in Longmen, and 17 have been held so far. Tourists have said that the activity is rich in ethnic characteristics, regional characteristics, and cultural characteristics, and building a platform for villagers and tourists to enjoy together, which can allow people to experience the rich and colorful cultural connotation of the Yao nationality in Lantian, which is refreshing.
It is worth noting that the characteristic cultural experience activities of Lantian Yao Township have recently been included in the party building project of the Party Committee of the Longmen County Culture, Radio, Television, Tourism and Sports Bureau. The relevant person in charge of the bureau said that the bureau is building an immersive and characteristic cultural tourism activity brand, taking the Lantian Yao intangible cultural heritage project and the experience of traditional sports of ethnic minorities as the carrier, carrying out more colorful Longmen intangible cultural heritage experience activities, and "going out" the activities and exporting them to various tourist attractions, inheriting the national culture and showing the national style in a beautiful and fun way, helping to comprehensively promote rural revitalization and promote the high-quality development of all-for-one tourism in Longmen County.
▲Lantian Yao patriarch table banquet
"The activation of intangible cultural heritage is an esoteric topic, and activation is an important part of the dissemination and diffusion, and it is also the only way for it to generate market value." Lin Huiwen, director of the Guangdong Folk Culture Research Association and a scholar of Huizhou folklore, said that at present, Huizhou is vigorously promoting all-for-one tourism, and Lantian "Dancing Fire Dog" is embedded as an experience or performance project, forming an immersive tourism brand project and driving the development of local tourism.
At present, Liu Weicong and his team are still vigorously promoting the characteristic cultural experience activities of Lantian Yao Township into more villages and scenic spots. He expects that if the conditions are perfect in the future, he will build this event into a stage play and melodrama, so that the characteristic culture of the Yao people in Lantian will go to a higher palace.