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Valeria Ordóñez Ghio
(CNN) — In photographer Zhang Xiao’s images of the Shehuo festival, an ancient celebration still celebrated in parts of northern China during the Lunar New Year, rural life comes to life with something much more fantastical.
Villagers dressed as cranes, roosters and mythical lions pose for portraits among crops or barbecued farmland. Costumed performers parade past brick houses with misty backdrops, their masked eyes seemingly lost in thought. In a harvested wheat field, a group of nearly a dozen men line up to hold aloft a colorful dragon title.
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In his new book “Community Fire,” Zhang said he wanted to capture the surreal “disconnection” between people’s everyday lives and the mythical personas they assumed.
“His characters seemed to come from heaven itself and… formed an enormous theatrical stage that transcended the confines of reality, transporting a group of sleepwalkers to a dream world,” he wrote. “I walked among them and photographed them quietly because I didn’t want to wake them up.”
A girl waits to put on her full costume before the festivities in Huanghuayu village, Shaanxi province. (Zhang Xiao)
Rooted in ancient agricultural practices of fire and earth worship, the folk rituals of Shehuo (often translated as “earth and fire”) traditionally involved praying for good fortune and bountiful harvests, or to ward off demons. Festivities vary by region, but now typically see various performers, from stilt walkers to opera singers, parading through the streets or performing shows.
Today the celebrations coincide with the Lunar New Year, which began on Saturday. As tales, they have come to encompass many of the traditions, such as temple fairs and lion dances, that were practiced in China during this period. (Lunar New Year celebrations typically last more than two weeks, with the Shehuo festival taking place on the 15th and final day of the season.)
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Shehuo celebrations have been recognized by the Chinese government on its UNESCO-style “intangible cultural heritage” list. But the festival’s place in a rapidly urbanizing country remains under threat, Zhang said, adding that most of the artists he encountered had migrated to the cities and only returned to their villages for holidays.
A group of friends poses with a large golden dragon title. (Zhang Xiao)
“The importance of traditional customs can no longer meet the needs of modern life,” the photographer told CNN by email. “Young people today are more concerned about the Internet and games. They are not even willing to try to understand traditional cultures. I think that’s sad.”
Electronic commerce and the death of craftsmanship.
Hoping to document the festival’s disappearing traditions, and the costumes and accessories associated with them, Zhang spent more than a decade photographing Shehuo events in villages in Shaanxi and Henan provinces. A selection of the images, taken between 2007 and 2019, are currently on display in the United States, at the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology at Harvard University (and more than 100 of them were published in “Community Fire”).
In addition to capturing rites, rituals and folklore, the photographs speak to the proliferation of mass-produced paraphernalia that has transformed the festival since the early 21st century. One image shows a stack of expressionless plastic masks; A set of 12 creepy images shows smiling utility heads hanging from trees in flimsy plastic bags.
Unfinished dragon head accessories piled on the ground in Huozhuang, Henan province. (Zhang Xiao)
Several pages of Zhang’s book are dedicated to screenshots from the Alibaba-owned shopping platform Taobao, where Shehuo items can be purchased at bargain prices. They range from an elaborate lion dance costume for two, offered for just 360 yuan (US$50), to a selection of headdresses priced under 17 yuan (US$2.40).
The increase in cheap products and electronic commerce has been a blessing to these people. Some of them – including Huozhuang in Henan province, which figures prominently in Zhang’s project – have seized the opportunity. The photographer visited and documented several small family workshops that purchase semi-finished products online in large quantities before finishing them by hand and selling them on platforms such as Taobao for a profit.
“In some villages, practically the entire population has mobilized to produce and sell Shehuo accessories,” the photographer writes in his book.
Shehuo artists recreate a battle between China’s Eighth Route Army and Japanese forces from the Second Sino-Japanese War. (Zhang Xiao)
But economic opportunities come with a loss of traditional skills and customs. Materials such as paper and bamboo have been replaced by cheap wire frames, plastic and synthetic fabrics, said Zhang, who grew up in a rural area of China’s Shandong province but now resides in Chengdu, one of the largest metropolises in the southwest. . from the country.
A third-generation accessory maker told Zhang that, in the photographer’s words, he “lamented the gradual disappearance of traditional craftsmanship.” But most villagers who encountered the photographer were indifferent to the loss of cultural heritage, he said.
And although Zhang, as a documentary filmmaker, assumed the role of “quiet spectator” while on assignment, he expressed regret at the festival’s rapid commercialization.
“People don’t focus on how to improve the quality and craftsmanship of the product,” said the photographer, who is currently working on a documentary about life in rural China.
“Instead, they are obsessed with how to make these products as quickly as possible and at the lowest cost, to gain an advantage over the competition. This has led to a gradual decline in product quality and the entire industry has fallen into a vicious cycle of price war.”
The-CNN-Wire
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