Chapter 29 Chapter Five The Development of Folk Acrobatics in Ming and Qing Dynasties

In the Jiangnan area of ​​the Ming Dynasty, people preferred to go out for outings during the Qingming Festival.The custom of outing in the Qingming Festival originated from the Shangsi Festival in ancient times. In ancient times, the Si day in the first ten days of March of the lunar calendar was called "Shangsi". "Book of the Later Han Dynasty: Etiquette Records 1" records, "It was the moon Shangsi, and the officials and the people were all cleansing on the east-flowing water.After the Wei and Jin Dynasties, it was set as March 3, and swimming by the water was called "Xiuxiu" [xixi] to dispel bad luck.Song Wu Zimu's "Meng Liang Lu" volume two "March" records:

Since then, people have taken March 3 as a festival, and some have taken Si Day as a festival, and the situation is different.Because our people have this custom, some acrobats often cater to people's needs by performing acrobatics in the open air or in suburban scenic spots to make a living.According to Tian Rucheng's "West Lake Tour Records" recorded in the Ming Dynasty, in the Su Causeway area of ​​Hangzhou: It can be seen from this that in the Ming Dynasty, when folk artists performed together in the open air, not only did they have more projects, but also the scale was relatively large. It was probably a temporary joint performance team composed of many people, many families, or many small community fires.According to the records of Zhang Daizhong, a native of the late Ming and early Qing:

Folk artists play the characters vividly and perform various acrobatics.The Qing Dynasty New Year's picture "Pedaling the Horse and Martial Art" is a true portrayal of folk artists' performances.