Xuanjuan And Daily Life In Zhitang

“Baojuan” mainly refers to a text record of talking and singing in accordance with certain rituals in the folk belief activities.Carrying out the speeches and ceremonies of the Baojuan text are usually called “Xuanjuan”.Initially originated from the Buddhist sacrificial rites,it was subsequently integrated into the folklore and cultural content,forming a folk culture with belief,entertainment,ethics,and regionalism.To nowadays,the activity of “Xuanjuan” was already in danger of extinction in many places,either adapted by modern methods or performed on the stage in the form of exhibitions.As the representative of the Wu dialect district,Changshu Zhitang Xuanjuan still remains the traditional characteristics of belief and regionalism.Choosing the “Zhitang Xuanjuan” as the research object,this article tried to reveal the interactive relationship between Xuanjuan and Zhitang villagers’ daily life through field investigation with the folklore and anthropological methods.It also explored collective memory and local sense of Zhitang people,which are displayed behind the original Zhitang Xuanjuan.The survey had found that although the performing ceremony of Zhitang Xuanjuan has undergone more than one hundred years of social and historical changes and inheritance,it has always been rooted in the daily life of Zhitang villagers,ran through their birth,death,illness and old age.On many occasions such as funerals,weddings,moving houses,praying for blessings,and celebrating the birthday for the elderly,Xuanjuan was all included as an important ceremony.With the help of various public cultural spaces among Buddhist temples,local temples and scattered villages,Zhitang Xuanjuan produced a cultural practice pattern with a strong local belief.The integration of Zhitang Xuanjuan and daily life had found a subtle mental orientation and ethical value orientation for Zhitang people’s family relations,neighborhood relations,and village order construction.In fact,Zhitang Xuanjuan is a part of the regional culture of Zhitang originally.It was derived from the closely-linked relationship of “Temple-Town”,after a series of complex reconstructions of local folk culture,it was built to form a kind of “collective memory” of Zhitang people in their practical life and intercourse memory from generations.This collective memory which was carried on from generation to generation is an important expression of the cultural inheritance of Zhitang.It condenses and accumulates the local historical and cultural traditions,reflects the local natural and humanistic characteristics,and shows the “local sense” of Zhitang culture.