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With its special geographical factors and historical background,
Penghu has been able to reserve its local features until today.
And these features are: beliefs and religions, festival and
holiday celebrations, and some National Literature and art season,
cultural festival promoted in recent years. |
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Beliefs and religions
The beliefs and religions of the Penghu people possess
strong local features. For example, the sea tour activity for
the Godess of Tien-hou Temple. This is an activity that combines
the living features of the island people and the original trqadition
and beliefs. Among temples, there are differences between public
temples and private temples. The former is owned by Penghu,
for exmple: Tien-hou temple, the temple of a city ruling deity,
and the pavilion of Guanyin. Activities in these public temples
are always bigger and also cost more. Private temples are owned
by smaller local administration divisions. The regular festivals
and activities in these temples are celebrations for gods's
birthdays and the peaceful blessing activity at the end of every
year. Other irregular events are celebrations for temples when
they are fully constructed or rebuilt. These events can be held
at anytime.
Among irregular events, the most special one is the activity
to sacrifice for kings. Among the 100 more temples, 47 of them
hold this kind of activities. This is a very important local
regions and custom which also reserves the simple nature of
the Penghu culture. The only difference is this special activity
is regularly held in Taiwan (once every 3 years), and is irregularly
held in Penghu. This has something to do with the close economic
ties among the private divisions in Penghu.
Festival and holiday celebrations
Yuan-Xiao turtle-begging blessing prayer
In the beginning of every year, Penghu people will hold
this Yuan-Xiao turtle-begging blessing prayer in temples. In
Penghu, this prayer ceremony is bigger and more creative and
interesting than those held in Taiwan. This is a very old tradition
and therefore each temple will try its effort to be creative
and special. This is also one unique feature that attracts many
many tourists.
Laver picking
When the winter northeaster wind is strong, wild laver
will naturally grow on the north side of islands or the nearby
rocks. If the temperature is not too high, and with weak sunshine,
the environment will be even better for laver to grow. Usually
people pick wild laver twice a year, and thrice the most. Usually
the first picking period will be around December (lunar calendar),
and if laver grows successfully, the second picking can be proceeded
around Januarary (lunar Calendar). The most famous group picking
is usually on the Gu-po island in Chi-kan village in Bai-sha.
Zhong-Yuan ghosts food-giving festivals
It was very common that Penghu people made their living on the
sea and died of accidents. Due to fear and traditional custom,
people will give out food to ghosts. There are public and private
festivals and mostly temples will hold public ones for bigger
occasions.
literature and art season, cultural festival
in 1994, the cultural construction committee of the Executive
Yuan has set the theme "fellowmen, mother soil and home
culture "for the national literature and art season and
assists each county and city to hold their events and present
their individual cultural features. The ultimate goal is to
promote "community overall building", to carry out
the ideal of"to build the great taiwan and rebuild the
new china". And
since 1998, to cooperate with the transformation of national
literature and art season, the name of this event is changed
to county and city cultural festival. In 4 years, penghu has
presented "historic song of chrysanthemum and birds",
"the age of mother-palace street", "the fragrant
of the chi-kan fish", "dike in the wind" and
"the legend of lao-gu stone".
1994 literature and art season - historic
song of chrysanthemum and birds
this event is held in the two-kan village with activities like:
two-kan temple fair sightseeing tour, contests playing folk
craft, penghu monument tour and traditional opera party. Motionless
events are two-kan village folk cultural and historic relic
festival, ancient monument and traditional village forum, penghu
ancient monument photograph event and two-kan impression material
event.
straw sandals
special straws are popular in penghu and are often used to make
straw sandals. But the penghu residents are used to use straw
ropes. Straw sandals are practical country handicraft, and they
are also the basic items housewives must prepare. But with products
made by machines presented, this handicraft is unevitably degenerating.
cattle vehicles
penghu is a remote province lack of goods and materials. Therefore,
other parts of taiwan may weed cattle vehicles out for years
though, lots of them can still be seen in penghu with wooden
wheels and hoops. For now, it already cost too much to produce
a cattle vehicle. With mechanic transportation tools being introduced,
most workers have changed their jobs.
wooden carving
due to its natural environment influences, it is difficult for
a place without woods like penghu to develop wooden carving
industry. Therefore, only few masters stay in this business.
But from the carving in the ancient temples in penghu, it is
quite obvious that those ancient masters possessed high quality
skills on wooden carving.
paper glue
at the end of every year, penghu residents will hold events
in every temple to thanks for the safety of this year. And this
is what supports the development of the paper glue business.
The other big event held once in a few years is the "king
boat sacrifice". In recent years, proprietors will ask
for a change and therefore is causing paper glue designers to
change its style to new ones. However, the simple beauty of
paper glue still remains.
sugar lion
it is very common for penghu residents to make sugar lion. General
chinese cake stores can make them, too. Mostly they are made
for temples beforehand. Therefore, reservations are necessary.
In general buddhist utensil stores, you can buy sugar lion mold,
not too common though.
1995 literature and art season - the age
of the mother palace street
this event is held at the central neighborhood in ma-gong city.
Centered by tian-hou palace, old pictures event and articles
to memorize old times are presented. Also there are tours to
stroll on this old street, events of impression materials, forums
to talk about its history, seminars of the new and old academic
research about this street, mazu patroling the sea, performances
of folk arts and songs, voting for the landmark, achivement
event of the plan for central street cultural style and features,
memorable melody and photography contests...etc.
1996 literature and art season - the fragrant
of chi-kan fish
this event is held in the chi-kan village in bai-sa country.
4 series are presented: the literature sketch of the fish village
series which includes : photo event, impression articles and
drafting contests; the impression material events series which
includes: chi-kan fishing gear, fishing skill event, prehistoric
culture event of chi-kan village, memory space exploring activity,
markets in chi-kan village, poetry and articles, and laver picking
emulation gathering; the homeland delight exploring series which
includes: the beauty of the night, traditional farming and fishing
skill contests, fishing village songs at night, skill contests
on living on the sea,folk songs and arts, and tours of chi-kan
history monuments and biology.
1997 literature and art season - the dike
in the wind --- gang-zai-wei
includes: establishing a monthly about gang-zai-wei, cooking
classroom about local food, spiral shell handicraft class, environmental
protection volunteer group, pictures and poetry event, dating
gang-zai-wei event, tour of human culture and nature in xujia
village, traditional living skill contests, the evening of gang-zai-wei,
rolling wisdom eggs, finding treasure, voting for the treasure
of ancient houses, and gatherings to exchange experiences about
community overall construction.
1999 cultural festival---the legend of
lao-gu stone
this event is held in tsai-yuan neighborhood in ma-gong city.
It includes: impression articles event,photo-taking contests
about lao-gu stone expressions and lines, love me vegetable
orchard, going to pile the lao-gu wall, delicious food stop,
traditional farming and fishing skill contests, classes for
lao-gu stone printing and dying, songs in the evening by the
sea, finding treasure event, art creation joint festival, coral
reef protection pictures event, poetry and writings event about
lao-gu stone, taking rafts for exciting experiences and tours
to villages and coral reef.
2002 Penghu cultural environment year-holding
"an exposition of cultural asset of chrysanthenmum island."
To cooperate with culture founding association to improve the
cultural environment, to wake up the public identification with
history and culture, and to establish the wholoe people value
of cultural asset, the cultural bureau has combined relevant
executive institutions of cultural asset to hold these series
events to hope thst people can realize the importance of the
cultural asset around them. These events include tours, seminars
and activities. This might also make people to participate into
the reservation and protection of cultural asset. The exposition
of cultural asset of chrysanthenmum island hold events such
as motionless festivals of cultural relics, Penghu traffic vedio
event, haft-day tour ro mother-palace castle, geology exploring
trip, basalt world fair, ancient toys experiences, folksongs
and dances and many folk skills such as bamboo strip weave,
cleaning faces with strips, weaving fish net, making straw sandals,
hook baskets, bamboo steamer and flower chisel. Also they play
old movies outdoor every Friday and Saturday night. This especially
reminds many old people their wonderful memories. |
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