On February 20, the 2024 Cannon Dragon Festival Hundred Dragons Dance Binzhou event was held in Binyang County, Nanning City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. More than 118 cannon dragons roamed the streets and alleys of the county, and hundreds of thousands of people participated in this festival. The picture shows the scene of people preparing for and participating in dragon dance activities on the day of the Cannon Dragon Festival. Jiang Chang/Photo by
Intern Jiang Chang, China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Xie Yang
"3, 2, 1..."
As people counted down in a low voice, the time came to 7 p.m. People at Binyang Paolong Old Temple could not contain their excitement and cheered at the same time. "Master" uncovered the paper covering Paolong's eyes and dotted the cockscomb blood on the longan.
Afterwards, more than a hundred cannon dragons that had been "consecrated" were danced by dragon dance warriors, as if they were flipping and jumping in the air, and got into the crowd that had already surrounded them, and returned to their respective streets.
"Bang!"
The first firecracker exploded, and people on the street threw their firecrackers at the dragon. Some people will even come forward to snatch the dragon's whiskers and scales. According to local legend, those who hit the dragon with firecrackers and grab the dragon's whiskers and scales will get good luck in the new year.
This is the evening of February 20, the scene of the 2024 "Paolong Festival Hundred Dragons Dance in Binzhou" event in Binyang County, Nanning City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. More than 600,000 people participated in this grand festival.
"Paolong" is a form of dragon dance. Firecrackers are set off while dancing. There is a folk saying that "the sound of cannons does not stop, but the dragon dances". Binyang Paolong Festival is known as the "Oriental Carnival". It is a folk festival that integrates Zhuang and Han cultures. It is held every year on the 11th day of the first lunar month. It has a history of 1,000 years and has been selected as a representative national intangible cultural heritage. Project Directory. For Binyang people who are away from home, they don’t have to go home on New Year’s Eve. They must return to the Paolong Energy Saving Festival on the 11th day of the first lunar month every year.
35-year-old Meng Weicheng is a senior dragon dance warrior. In his view, the dragon dance is a kind of inheritance. He learned the dragon dance from his father. Meng Weicheng, who has been dancing the dragon dragon since the third grade of elementary school, now plans to teach his own children. He was delighted to discover that the Cannon Dragon Festival in his childhood had only a few dozen cannon dragons at most on the streets of the county town. Now there are often hundreds of cannon dragons dancing in the streets and alleys. The scale is much larger than before, and the number of tourists from all over the world is also greater than before. There used to be a lot more.
Young people can’t stand the loneliness, and the art of making the artillery dragon is almost obsolete
While the artillery dragon festival is becoming more and more popular, some traditional skills of the artillery dragon are at risk of being lost from generation to generation.
In addition to the artillery dragon dance, the artillery dragon festival also has many related cultures and skills, such as artillery dragon making, acrobatics (an acrobatic performance), firecracker manufacturing, etc. Making the Cannon Dragon is one of the core elements of the Cannon Dragon Festival.
70-year-old Zou Yute is the representative inheritor of Guangxi’s intangible cultural heritage project. He has taken over his father’s mantle and has been making cannon dragons for more than 40 years. He is a well-known master in making dragon dragons in the local area. He can sell more than 30 dragon dragons every year. Some people want to pay high prices to buy the dragon dragons he makes, but they can't buy them.
Such a senior folk craft master was also faced with the problem of losing his craft 10 years ago.
"Young people want to learn how to make dragon dragons, and I teach them for free. But I was 60 years old at the time, and there was no one who could take over, so I was very anxious." Zou Yute said.
Zou Yu only has two requirements for accepting a disciple: first, he can calm down and concentrate on his studies; second, he does not have too much burden at home. He said that people who can calm down learn faster. There is not much burden at home, and study progress is not often interrupted by various matters. Even with this requirement, it is difficult for anyone to meet it.
To truly be a good artillery dragon, it cannot be learned in a day or two.
The production of Paolong requires more than 30 processes, from material selection to frame making, stickers, coloring and so on. Some exquisite cannon dragons have more than 1,000 binding points on one faucet, which is a great test of the master's experience and technology, and can be completed in batches without machines. Moreover, the Paolong must not only look stunning in appearance, but also be strong and durable.During the dance of the Cannon Dragon, firecrackers will come to explode the Cannon Dragon, and people will come to pull the Cannon Dragon. This all places considerable requirements on the robustness of the Cannon Dragon. Even a master like Zou Yute takes about a month to complete a 21-meter-long cannon dragon alone.
"Young people can't stand loneliness and can't calm down. I have had several apprentices, but none of them persisted in the end." Zou Yute said with regret on his face.
Hu Guoqiang, another famous master of making dragons in Binyang County, also had the same worries. He once had several apprentices, but they all gave up in the end. He said: "It doesn't make money to make dragons, and it's more complicated." It is boring, very hard, and often stays up late. Young people are often more willing to do jobs that make money faster."
The younger generation takes over the baton from the older generation
In order to inherit and carry forward this unique folk culture, Binyang County follows the " With the idea of "protection first, rescue first, rational utilization, inheritance and development", implement the "Paolong Culture" brand strategy, establish an intangible cultural heritage list and inheritor file information database, guide and recommend the application for representative inheritance of various types of intangible cultural heritage People, set up an intangible cultural heritage protection working team, carry out intangible cultural heritage project research, collect intangible cultural heritage documents and other work.
In June 2008, Binyang Cannon Dragon Festival was included in the national intangible cultural heritage list. As Binyang County has introduced a series of supporting measures to promote the development of economic and cultural industries related to the "Pao Dragon Festival", the "Pao Dragon Festival" has gradually become a business card of Binyang County.
In order to solve the "worries" of the old masters and pass on the cultural skills related to the "Paolong Festival", the Binyang County Government organized intangible cultural heritage inheritors to teach apprentices and called on the inheritors of folk intangible cultural heritage to enter schools.
In 2016, at the invitation of the Binyang County Government, Zou Yute opened a "Paolong Shooting" training class at the Binyang County Vocational and Technical School. In 2017, when he was over 60 years old, he opened an interest class on Paolong skill at Binyang County National Middle School, teaching the traditional skill of Paolong to more people.
In the following years, Zou Yute taught more than 1,000 students and accepted 7 closed disciples. One of them has already graduated and can independently complete a majestic, exquisite and durable cannon dragon. .
“My skills have been passed down, and I no longer have to worry about no one taking over my job.” Zou Yute said with a smile. With the reputation of the Cannon Dragon Festival, it has spread beyond Binyang and Guangxi. There were even students who came all the way from Inner Mongolia to visit Zou Yute and wrote about Zha Paolong in their papers.
While the legacy of the older generation of craftsmen has been inherited, the younger generation has also begun to take over the baton from the older generation and take the initiative to run further on the road of inheritance of Paolong culture.
36-year-old Chen Xinkun is one of the youngest local Paolong producers. He has been deeply attracted by the artillery culture since he was a child, and made his first artillery dragon in elementary school. In 2015, Chen Xinkun was invited to Taiwan for exchange as a folk craftsman of the Cannon Dragon Festival. In 2019, 31-year-old Chen Xinkun was awarded the title of inheritor of the traditional cannon dragon production of the "Binyang Cannon Dragon Festival" by the Guangxi Binyang County Folk Cannon Dragon Art Association.
In this year’s Cannon Dragon Festival, Chen Xinkun sold 18 cannon dragons. Not counting the cost, this brought nearly 100,000 yuan in income to his family.
"The scale of the Cannon Dragon Festival has become larger, and more people are buying Cannon Dragons. Now it is more profitable to make Cannon Dragons than before." Chen Xinkun said.
Binyang County Paolong Association is the largest non-governmental organization of Paolong culture in Binyang County. According to statistics, there are currently 66 people in the association, of which more than 60% are practitioners of Paolong culture under the age of 35.
Old Cannon Dragon Pinxin Simplified
On February 19th, the day before the gun dragon festival was held, in the home of Chen Xinkun's painting flavor, the reporter saw a huge bamboo dragon head frame, and there were two small bamboo. Faucet frame. Chen Xinkun introduced that the two small faucet frames were his "drafts". To create a more popular faucet, he is constantly trying to incorporate new elements.
In order to catch up with the trend, Chen Xinkun specially designed a "national trend" cannon dragon. He referred to the "national trend" related designs on the Internet and painted the dragon's head and body almost entirely in the bright red color rarely used in traditional cannon dragons. And the dragon tail uses bright red as the main color and golden yellow as the secondary color, like a carp that crosses the dragon gate and turns into a dragon.
"My dragon is very unique and young people like it very much." Chen Xinkun said that the huge dragon head frame in his home is the next "national trend" cannon dragon semi-finished product that has been booked.
More and more young people are joining in, injecting fresh creativity and vitality into the traditional festival of Paolong Festival. Some use two strong flashlights instead of the traditional longan, which will emit two powerful "divine lights" during the dragon dance; some install colored light strips on the dragon's body to make the dragon's body sparkle at night; Reflective performance costume sequins are used to replace the original paper scales to make the dragon scales more dazzling; some use lightweight silk materials to replace the traditional paper and cloth as the dragon body, making the dragon dance's movements easier and more agile...
In addition to the production of Paolong itself, some new things have also penetrated into every corner of Paolong culture.
Some cannon dragons open to visitors to experience dragon explosions and dragon dances are placed in the Cannon Dragon Cultural Plaza so that tourists can participate. Chen Xinkun will post short videos on Douyin to record his artillery making process. Internet celebrities and anchors from inside and outside Binyang picked up their mobile phones one after another to recommend the Binyang Cannon Dragon Festival to netizens...
The anchor Ren Qing who came from Shandong gained a lot from the live broadcast before the Cannon Dragon Festival on February 19. Over 1 million likes. At 11 a.m. on the next day of the Cannon Dragon Festival, Ren Qing introduced the Cannon Dragon culture to fans on the streets filled with drums: "Being here is really a rare life experience. Such traditional intangible cultural heritage culture cannot be It’s hard to feel the shock at the scene.” At this time, the number of online viewers in the live broadcast room reached 1,200.
20-year-old Qiu Lu grew up in Binyang. She looks forward to the Cannon Dragon Festival every year. "This is the culture that we Binyang people are most proud of, and it should be passed down. Every generation of Binyang people should dance the dragon." She said that when she was studying in university in Liaoning, she would also introduce and recommend the dragon dance to classmates from all over the world. Festival.
According to comprehensive data from Binyang County, the Paolong Festival in 2024 attracted about 672,000 tourists from inside and outside the county, an increase of 20% compared with 560,000 in 2023, and stimulated social consumption of about 200 million yuan, compared with 162 million yuan in 2023. Compared to an increase of 23.5%.
Source: China Youth Daily
