Tradition vs. authenticity : the intangible cultural heritage of the Nianli Festival at Zaohu temple

Abstract

The Gaozhou area in Guangdong province has been recorded in history since the Qin (秦) dynasty. In these historical records, there are various kinds of traditional cultural practices passed from ancient times to modern days. Some of these practices represent the cultural tradition of southwestern Guangdong region and they are a combination of the Cantonese and Hakka cultural heritage. One of such combined Cantonese-Hakka heritage is Nianli, a most important festival taken by local people as the most important event in the year. However, few scholars pay attention to the Nianli Festival as an important representative cultural heritage. Hence, it is valuable to look the Nianli Festival and find out what are the intangible cultural values that make it so treasured by villagers that it is a widespread practice in southwestern Guangdong.

The scope of the research is about how the Nianli Festival could be considered as intangible cultural heritage. On this basis, we can discuss further about the authenticity and the core values that have to be considered when protecting the heritage. The focus is about the tradition of the Nianli（年例）Festival. Nianli is a traditional practice popular among southwestern Guangdong, and in this dissertation, the case is adopting a villages communities surrounding the Zaohu Temple（皂湖庙）.

The methodology of the research is by using cultural mapping to map the oral history and practice of villagers from the Zaohu Temple community about their Nianli Festival.