July Fair in Rural Suichang

Suichang as a county in southern Zhejiang dates back to 218 AD. Although it is just a small county landlocked in mountains, the rural life there has maintained its pastoral essence and produced quite a few outstanding personalities. Tang Xianzu, a great playwright in the years of the Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), worked as county magistrate in Suichang for five years (1593-1598). Many historians attribute to Tang the local people’s passion for singing and dancing and other folk festivities. One of the evidences is a local celebration called Autumn Fair or July Fair. The ten musical pieces played for hundreds of years at the fair can be traced back to Tang who wrote timeless masterpieces such as “The Peony Pavilion” in Suichang.

There are different theories about the origin of the July Fair in Suichang, but they have one thing in common. Once upon a time 24 brothers surnamed Cai took refuge in Suichang and they made a living by cutting firewood. One day they ran into a deity. The deity told them that there were 24 golden chairs in a cave at the foot of a steep cliff and that they would become immortals if they found the chairs and took seats there. The brothers jumped from the cliff and found the chairs. Gradually local people came to believe that the brothers were their guardians. So temples were built to worship them and ceremonies took shape.On the first dragon day after the Beginning of the Autumn (which is one of the 24 solar terms in the Chinese lunar calendar and falls on around August 8 in the solar calendar) every year, local people would hold sacrificial ceremonies in honor of the guardians. The biggest ceremony was the July Fair in today’s Shilian Town. This celebration has survived.

The July Fair in Shilian has always been held by a neighborhood of 16 villages. Each of the sixteen is put in charge of a 20-day annual celebration in turn. Fifteen days before the celebration starts, the sponsoring village will get busy with preparations. The village head will count male heads in the village so as to make sure how pairs of flags in five colors will be made. Each household will be instructed to make an offering. The village will inspect the devices to be used by honor guards, train the drum and gong team and the band, and repaint the theater stage and prepare food to entertain visitors. Everyone in the sponsoring village will get a new dress for the 20-day celebration. And villagers in the village will practice fast before the big day.

The 20-day celebration goes around 16 villages. A statue of the god (isn’t strange that 24 brothers shared just one image to mortals?) is the centerpiece of the parade. The parade starts in the morning after a grand ceremony. The gala parade proceeds with banners, sedan chairs, Buddhist statues, accompanied by a great fanfare of music and percussions and escorted by priests and other important people. The parade stops one night at one village. When the statue arrives, it is placed on a special platform which is garishly decorated with couplets, lanterns and banners. A table near nearby is heaped with offerings in 24 bowls and 24 plates. Each village stages a play at night to express gratitude to their guardians for their blessings. The statue relay goes around 16 villages and then it comes back to the starting village and stays there for another three nights. There will be dramas staged to pay homage to the guardians for three nights on end. Then the fair ends.

The annual celebration is more than parades and folk opera performances. The stage serves as the center of trading activities. Vendors set up their stalls around the stage and in many villages the stalls will radiate out to neighboring lanes and streets. As the July Fair is 20 days long and important, vendors prepare their goods long before the fair and people from villagers in mountains come to watch the parade and plays and buy things they need.

The July Fair started in the 12th year of the Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty and lasted for about 400 years. The fair evolved and changed to cater to local needs and wants and wishes. However the fair stopped in the 1930s. It was not until 2001 that villagers decided to bring the custom back.

The new fair has modern elements. Spectators flood in from all over the region in buses, cars, and motorcycles. Modern musical instruments in a parading band can be spotted now and then. Loudspeakers are used to broadcast the traditional 10 musical pieces. Police are usually called in to keep order.

The county government has started to salvage local traditions and customs since 2004, and the county’s cultural authorities has formulated plans to help promote the fair and given funds to support the band and the ten musical pieces, but the fair essentially remains a big event of the sixteen villages as it was for hundreds of years.