Ying Laoye of Chaoshan

Ying laoye is the god-procession custom of the Chaoshan region of Guangdong. 'Laoye', the Lord, is the local honorific for a tutelary deity, and 'ying' preserves in the dialect its old Chinese sense of touring or circling a parish: carrying the image in procession around the villages. It descends from the offering to the earth god between village wards, and keeps something of the ancient spring prayer; the dates fall in the first and second lunar months, which is why Chaoshan has the saying 'gods are carried in the first and second months'.

The ancestors of the Chaoshan people came south largely from the Central Plain, and the old rite of greeting the gods at the spring sacrifice came with them, merging with local belief. Suspended for a time in the last century, the processions resumed after reform and opening, and in recent years the scale has grown year by year. In 2015 ying laoye was inscribed on the provincial intangible cultural heritage list of Guangdong.

A full ying laoye has three stages: inviting the Lord, when village elders bring the image from the temple onto the palanquin; worshipping the Lord, when villagers come to the god ground with the three sacrificial offerings, rice cakes and braised goose; and carrying the Lord, when the palanquin tours every lane of the village before the god is escorted back to the temple. The escort forms up in order: horse-head gong, the 'silence' and 'make way' placards, banner flags, Chaozhou big drum and gong, Yingge dance, dragon and lion.

Processions are either civil or martial. The civil form leads with the escort and walks every lane, circling the boundary of the community once. The martial form is rougher: the 'god dragging' of Yanzao in Chenghai, the 'god binding' and 'god pounding' of Woshi in Chao'an, and the 'running the god' in which the palanquin is carried over a fire are all of this kind. Yingge dance takes its plot from the Liangshan heroes attacking the Daming prefecture at the Lantern Festival; the dancers paint their faces as those heroes, build on southern boxing, and strike wooden sticks against each other with formidable force.

In Chaoshan, ying laoye was never only a sacrifice. Those who work away come home for the day, each branch of each clan contributes men and money, and clan and neighbourhood are bound together again in the same rite; the crafts of Chaozhou big drum and gong, Yingge dance, embroidered banner flags, gold-lacquer wood carving and rice-cake making are handed down through this yearly rehearsal and performance.

The custom travelled with Chaoshan people overseas: the procession at the Johor Ancient Temple in Malaysia is more than a century old and draws participants by the hundred thousand. For Chaoshan people today, ying laoye is both a blessing and a public statement of identity — the celebration comes from somewhere, and so do the people.