Many villages in Zhaoan County, Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province have held activities to welcome the gods.

Based on personal observation, records and interviews, this paper discusses why villagers insist on holding such activities even though they spend so much manpower, material resources and financial resources.

China is a big agricultural country. Every year, villagers have a series of methods and ceremonies to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Every festival, ordinary people will put down their work, and at the same time, due to the superstitious psychology of praying for God, festivals are often combined with the worship of God. These magical activities can not only adjust and lubricate the monotonous farming life, but also pray for peace and repay the gods. Therefore, people attach great importance to the magical activities with sacrificial significance.

Through the investigation and interview of Qianqian village villagers, we can know that the villagers attach great importance to magic activities every year, and they raise a lot of money every year (such as the donation book of "ten thousand benevolence" posted on the wall opposite the stage) to support and hold magic activities, especially magic activities programs.

They believe that the magical activities of rewarding the gods can influence the gods, place their gratitude on the gods for blessing the whole village with good weather, and look forward to a better harvest and a better life in the coming year.

Because the villagers' society has not yet developed to a certain stage, villagers always rely on the gods to pray for good health, good weather and protection from natural disasters in the coming year. According to the villagers, the weather when King Fude was sent back after the magical activity every year was clear in Wan Li and cloudless in Wan Li.

The magical activities not only express the villagers' gratitude to the gods, but also express the essence of villagers' "having fun with the gods". When performing magical stunts, there is a process of welcoming and sending gods to express the villagers' respect and admiration for Fude, the land god who bless the whole village.

In addition, as a part of China traditional culture, this magical activity can be passed down to today, which depends on the beliefs and conservative thinking attitude of villagers in remote areas. It expresses the good and hardworking villagers' yearning for a better life in the future and their lofty ideals of developed career, continuous financial resources, prosperity of future generations, social progress and world peace.

Finally, as a national quintessence, sword helps Qiancun villagers adjust their lives, enrich their ideological and historical knowledge, improve the level of spiritual civilization, promote the process of villagers' civilization and the construction of Qiancun's spiritual culture and moral culture, and contribute to the development and perfection of all aspects of body and mind.

2. Apart from the significance of offering sacrifices, what is the role of magical activities for a community or community?

Looking at this activity, such as welcoming the gods, appreciating the gods and performing national dramas, it mainly includes two aspects: one is to pray for the safety of the population, and the other is to pray for prosperity. The annual magical activity not only plays the role of offering sacrifices to gods, praying for prosperous business and wealth in the coming year, but also plays an important role in socializing and communicating the feelings of villagers in the community.

For example, according to the villagers, many villagers who emigrated abroad will still hold magic activities, that is, they will rush back to their hometown to participate in the annual magic activities of King Fude's birthday in Qianqian Village. This shows that magical activities have become a bond to maintain the feelings of villagers in the community, enhance national unity and community cohesion, make the community in Qiancun more harmonious, and achieve the goal of "making money harmoniously".

With the development of society, teenagers and middle-aged and elderly audiences can experience magical activities together at the same time, which makes villagers of different ages increase exchanges and promote internal unity and harmony. In every magical activity, the villagers help the old and love the young, which can be described as "all ages eat", appealing to both refined and popular tastes, attracting the largest audience, with a large number of people and spectacular scenes, and playing a positive role in "home and everything".

Finally, it should be pointed out that magical activities contain profound ideological and moral concepts and values. Such as the feudal remnants of the idea that men are superior to women, the idea of three cardinal guides and five permanent members, and the idea of arranged marriage based on family. These will be replaced with the continuous development and progress of society. These thoughts are the ideological and moral constraints of the villagers in Qiancun. In other words, as a remnant of feudal society, witchcraft still maintains the old morality and order, which is a factor that binds the villagers' ideological liberation.

3. What role did Shen Gongyan play in it?

The magical power of the countryside entertains both gods and people, achieving the purpose of "people and gods have fun together" and "advocating praying in the name of avoiding disasters".

Shen Gong's performance and the location of the temple have profound feng shui symbols. The Shen Gong in Qiancun is held next to the temple. The audience not only believed in Shen Gong's power, but also knew that Shen Gong's opera was a sacrifice for God, and added another kind of "supernatural" experience. For example, before you go on stage to perform every magical performance, you have to go through a series of magical ceremonies such as burning incense in the temple and setting off firecrackers to meet the gods. You should choose geomantic omen to show your respect for God, and use drugs and stage to start money laundering, burn incense and inform God. Before the opera begins, the person in charge should say a few words to Shen, and the artist has taboo words. During the magic show, the whole village should avoid unlucky words in case the gods turn against each other. According to the villagers, if the gods are not sacrificed before the magic show, the stage will suddenly catch fire and burn down. The troupe will also be dissolved. The common people are in awe of this invisible god.

Through investigation, we can find that most of the main magical works of Cantonese opera end in comedy. On the one hand, it is conducive to the promotion of moral education, and on the other hand, it is because villagers believe that Taoism is not only a symbol of luck and prosperity, but also can fundamentally predict happiness and prosperity, and even bring happiness and prosperity. Therefore, it is unlucky and inappropriate to stage a tragedy during the temple fair.

The intention in opera is also very particular. For example, the word "Wang" means "success and prosperity" in business, so people who look at it look at it with hope and hope for life.

For example, it refers to a relatively short "program", usually an actor wearing a white smile mask plays the role of a god and appears on the stage for two to three minutes; He didn't need any lines, pointed to the sky and finally opened the auspicious couplets. Fairy is typical of Qiancun. This doll symbolizes the traditional ideal that China people generally expect to have more children. People think that watching this play has the function of sending children away.

Traditional Chinese opera is a bright pearl preserved from the ancient traditional culture of China and the essence of China culture. For rural audiences, watching drama can not only give them a temporary rest and fun after hard work, but also provide them with rich historical knowledge and topics worth talking about in the future, improve the cultural interest of villagers and provide them with long-term spiritual enjoyment.