1793 English Eyes Of The Grand Canal Folk

Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal as China’s north-south traffic artery has played an important part in history, which is along one of the richest agricultural regions in China, is known as the ancient folk gallery, culture promenade, etc. In recent years,with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal listed in World Heritage list, research on the Grand Canal has also become a hot spot. However, many scholars discussed it from the cultural, political and other aspects, few people study in the Grand Canal folk. In1793 the British mission in China is on the way back and forth through the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, they recorded the customs of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the local culture, the Grand Canal custom and folk along the banks of the Canal city at that time were recorded, rich in historical and academic value, can enrich and complement the existing literature to the image of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal; the folk custom data were recorded by foreigners, in which there may be some misunderstandings, mistakes even prejudice, study in it can restore true folk appearance at that time, and promote the folk study of the Grand Canal; can reveal the conflict between Chinese and Western folk culture, open a new angle of folklore studies.Therefore, the record of folk data will be collected and analyzed in this paper, in the first chapter of the record of folk data to conduct a comprehensive combing, the second chapter studies the transportation and labor folklore, the third chapter analysis urban folk including residential buildings, food and dress, city commercial, marriage,funeral, etc, the forth chapter mining on the smoking and drinking tea, beliefs and other social customs,at the same time refer to the same period recorded in other works and folklore data to carry out specific research on folklore.