The centennial temple fair welcomes guests from all over the world, and the thousand-year-old trees sway the music of the times. April 23, 2024 is the fifteenth day of the third month of the lunar calendar, and it is also the day of the annual Longpan temple fair. Hundreds of villagers in the three villages of Longhua, Zhongyi and Yanyang gathered together in festive costumes, singing and dancing to celebrate the temple fair on March 15, 2024 (Jiachen).
It is reported that the Longpan Temple Fair has been around for a long time. According to the literature, the Sansheng Temple in the Longpan temple fair was built around 1812, it is the largest temple in Longpan, the temple is dedicated to Confucius, Wenchang Emperor, Guanyin, so it is called the Sansheng Temple. With the prosperity of the ancient tea horse road, the horse gangs from all over the country come and go here, to the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, the temple fair on March 15 has formed a more socially influential "Longpan temple fair" activity on the ancient tea horse road.
Every year on the 15th day of March of the lunar calendar is the temple fair day, and the meeting lasts for three days. During the temple fair, the people of the nearby ten miles and eight towns flocked to the meeting, sacrificed the three saints, and gathered in the spring outing. During this period, there are folk song duets, ancient music performances, Dian opera performances and other folk cultural exchanges and material trading activities. Over time, it has gradually developed into one of the important platforms for the exchange and display of traditional music and dance of Naxi, Tibetan, Han and other ethnic groups in Lijiang.
Nowadays, the Longpan Temple Fair has become a local traditional festival, and in August 2016, it was included in the fifth batch of intangible cultural heritage protection projects in Lijiang City by the Lijiang Municipal People's Government. After that, the people of Longpan held a series of activities on the fifteenth day of March of the lunar calendar every year. Even during the three years of the epidemic, the Lumpon Township Lum Keken Cultural Research Association has been hosting symposiums and blessing ceremonies.
This year's Longpan March 15 temple fair cultural performance for the benefit of the people was sponsored by the general party branch, village supervision committee and village committee of Longpan Village.
On the same day, the Longpan Temple Fair kicked off in the worship of Confucius, followed by "Dongba Prayer", and 20 literary and artistic teams in the township appeared one after another.
During the performance, traditional programs such as unicorn dance, gourd sheng dancing, Oh Muda, and Alili were wonderful, with beautiful melodies and cheerful dances, integrating entertainment and ornamentation. The program written and performed by the villagers showed the love of the Naxi people for the traditional national culture, won the applause of the audience, and the performance program allowed the audience to enjoy a pleasant cultural feast while feeling the beautiful new life.
In order to participate in the performance, many actors paid for their own costumes, and even gave up farm work and rest time to work overtime to rehearse.
He Wenjie is a local folk artist in Longpan, who works hard to learn and inherit the Naxi folk song "Gu Qi". At the scene, he improvised and lyrically sang about the new era and a better life.
"In recent years, the development of our national culture has been getting better and better, and I have gradually realized the significance and importance of inheriting national culture, and I have taken the initiative to participate in many literary and artistic activities. He Wenjie said that he likes folk songs, and will take time to sort out folk song materials in the future and continue to contribute to the promotion of national culture.
Source: Window of the Jade Dragon