Passing parade …

Most authoritative guides to Chinese culture will inform you that the Chinese New Year celebration – known as Spring Festival (Chūn Jié 春节) – extends over 15 days. The end of this wonderful, family oriented holiday period is marked by Lantern Festival (Yuán Xiāo Jié元宵节), which falls on its 15^th day. Of course there are many traditions associated with the celebration of Spring Festival and Lantern Festival. Whilst some of the rich traditions are common throughout the country, diverse and strong local traditions are also found in many places.

This year, through one local tradition here in Zhanjiang I discovered that earnest celebrations of the New Year do not necessarily conclude at Lantern Festival. The path to this discovery involved luck and ‘contacts’ (and ‘contacts’ are all important in China). An Australian friend living here, married to a local lady, phoned late one evening a few days after Lantern Festival – he knows well that we both delight in many aspects of Chinese culture. His wife happened to hear in passing that there would be a parade through a neighbourhood adjoining theirs the following day; he phoned me to ascertain my enthusiasm for joining them to find out exactly what a local parade would entail.

From what I could understand, the parade was an event organised very much by locals in one of the city’s older neighbourhoods called Bǎi Xìng Cūn (百姓村), which translates as ‘One Hundred Name Village’. This is an area where people live in small, free-standing but densely packed, multi-story houses – not on account of their affluence, but rather on account of the area being very old. It has just evolved from a rural village, fortunately unassisted by large real estate developers.  It is an inviting maze of delightful lanes, small roads, old and new houses, temples, and a few community ‘squares’ or open gathering places.

The promised parade was more than we had dared to imagine; a magnificent kaleidoscope of local talent and culture, with both traditional and modern elements. Dragons, lion dancers, floats, marching bands, firecrackers (wouldn’t be a Chinese parade without these), dancers, marionette like dolls and, much to our delight, ‘piāo sè’ floats. It was a magnificent treat to see real piāo sè in this parade – piāo sè are an aspect of local culture that I had long heard about. But, till now, it had been mysterious and utterly elusive. Local city folk, including my colleagues, all seem to know about piāo sè, but few have actually seen them, and it is a rare few that have knowledge of when and where one might be able to experience this beautiful and famous element of local culture.

Piāo sè are beautifully costumed figures, usually young children, who appear usually in pairs on small floats (or moving platforms). They sit or stand on the float, and one of the figures might appear to be floating or flying, thanks to cleverly concealed supports – piāo sè (飘色) literally translates as flying colour. Their wonderfully colourful costumes, complimented by intricate makeup, are visually stunning; usually they are inspired by an ancient legend, opera or other tale.

Two other components of the procession were also particularly intriguing and extremely unusual – a fruit dragon and a ritualistic display by older teenage boys. The fruit dragon was truly impressive and obviously required many many hours of work to construct – it included, pineapples, pomelos (like large grapefruit), bananas and, quite appropriately, parts of the dragon fruit plant! Its real significance eluded us; did it perhaps signify abundance and pose as an auspicious talisman for future harvests?

The most unusual parade participants were teenage boys riding on floats, or small platforms, supporting miniature, intricately decorated temples. All these boys had fine steel spears piercing one cheek. From what we could understand, this was a combination of a display of spiritual faith to their god(s) along with a ritual of entering adulthood – all seemed to be about the same age and in their late teens. Perhaps they hope this ritual will help ensure success in their exams and future opportunities, or maybe it was a desire to show their manhood and be part of the group. Or, perhaps it was actually just the lure of a new tracksuit – all were wearing identical, brand new adidas tracksuits.

The processional route was obviously planned with exceptional care. It travelled as many of the streets and laneways as physically possible, paying respect and celebrating significant localities within the ‘village’ including the local school, the market and, all importantly, the local temples. It truly had the feeling of locals conducting a celebration for themselves. Whilst all visitors, including ourselves, were openly welcomed – they had not made any obvious efforts to attract outsiders.

By wandering through the streets and back lanes as the parade progressed, we were able to take in the procession a number of times to enjoy somewhat of an instant replay. From the combination of the setting, neighbourhood decorations for the occasion, enthusiastic energy of the participants and diversity of the parade’s components, my friend and I became intoxicated by this wonderful display. This was local culture at its very best.

It’s a big country

Australians have long had an obsession with ‘big’ monuments to small innocuous items – the Big Banana (Coffs Harbour, NSW), the Big Pineapple (Sunshine Coast, Qld), the Big Merino (Goulburn, NSW) and the Giant Koala (Dadswells Bridge, Vic) are but a few of a remarkably long list. Whilst many of us might consider this fascination, bordering on obsession, with ‘Big’ things to be very Australian, recent travels in China have revealed that we are not alone!

Of course, it is well known that China is a country comprising many genuinely big things – it has the biggest population, the biggest wall (the Great Wall), one of the longest rivers (the Yangtze), part of the tallest mountain (Mt Everest known as Mount Quomolangma in China) and many more. However, few foreigners know about China’s own ‘big’ monuments to the small and innocuous. So it was somewhat of a revelation when I discovered the ‘Big’ Rice Cooker on a road in the outskirts of the city of Zhanjiang, Guangdong. Though initially dumbfounded by this discovery, I quickly came to see the logic – Zhanjiang is a major manufacturing centre for electric rice cookers of all descriptions. In fact, more than 50% of all rice cookers in the world are manufactured here.

This discovery of the Big Rice Cooker spurred my thinking. Soon, I realised that some months earlier I had, in fact, already discovered another Chinese ‘big’ monument – the Big Hot Pot! A gigantic hot pot in ChongQing – a city famous for its spicy hotpot cuisine.  Now, my imagination runs wild with possibilities for other ‘big’ monuments here in China – perhaps the Big Chopsticks, the Big Panda, the Big Dumpling … surely the list would be endless big.