| 英文摘要 |
This article deals with five intertwined issues surrounding the popular celebration of the Dragon-boat Festival (Double Fifth Day) during the Ming-Qing period. First, together with the Lantern Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival forms one of the three most popular Chinese holidays which have been celebrated over the past centuries. It was observed almost everywhere in China, but ways of celebrating the festival varied enormously from place to place. Shared experiences of the local specificities of celebration activities helped to cultivate a sense of locality and cultural identity among people from the same regions. Second, although a quasi-official version associating the death of the patriotic poet Qu Yuan (ca. 340-278 BC) with the origin of the festival dominated among elite circles, it is questionable whether this legend ever made its way into the collective memory of the populace. Whenever local governments proscribed these celebrations on the grounds of maintaining public order and safety, the common rationale used by the people to justify continuing their centuries-long tradition was the need to ward off epidemic diseases and evil spirits. Third, it is generally held that the ''Dragon-boat Festival,'' as its English translation misleadingly suggests, constitutes three indispensible elements: the date (duanwu; the fifth day of the fifth lunar month), the object (longzhou; dragon-boat), and the act (jingdu; boat racing). However, based on a comparative study of extant local gazetteers, this paper argues otherwise. In fact, dragon-boat racing was neither always held nor only held on the Double Fifth Day. Some places featured boat races during the Mid-Autumn Festival instead. Furthermore, boats for racing on the Double Fifth Day were not necessarily built in the shape of a dragon. Conversely, in some localities, dragon boats might not be built for speed racing, but rather used as floating stages for musical or acrobatic performances. Instead of racing, boaters in this case were competing to catch scurrying ducks or sinking coins cast by spectators. Fourth, ''re'nao'' (hustle and bustle) is a key term frequently employed to depict this festival celebration. The river featuring the dragon-boat racing became a temporary spectacle where people, regardless of gender and social status, enjoyed clamorous interaction with the rowers in the boats or the viewers along the banks. Yet under the surface of the hustle and bustle lay its subversive potential, since the social order based upon class differentiation and gender distinction was temporarily at stake. Moreover, preparation for the dragon-boat festival celebrations involved fund-raising, boat building, and the training of rowers, all of which required the social mobilization of the local populace. Arguably, then, the Dragon-boat Festival might serve to foster social autonomy to a certain extent and was hence perceived as a threat to political authority. Lastly, this paper uses the Dragon-boat Festival as a lens to examine the interaction and dialectical tension between state and society. Normally, political authority would allow-or at least tolerate-the popular celebration of the Dragonboat Festival in order to ''share joy with the people.'' Yet at the same time, local governments also attempted to monitor and police festival activities for fear of their latent subversive potential. The delicate balance between permitting the populace to relish in celebration activities and release pent-up energy on the one hand while simultaneously preserving social order on the other constituted an enduring challenge to political authority. Indeed, many official attempts were made during the Ming-Qing period to prohibit boat-racing and to limit celebration activities to the household. These attempts eventually failed, but the centuries-long struggle between political power and popular social forces like two dragon-boats in the stream of history-might continue forever. |
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