I had the pleasure of getting out of Beijing proper and to a pair of villages called Gianjun Tai and Shuanghu The villages have been practicing a ritual for almost 500 years. The ceremony is a show of friendship between the two small villages. On the 15th day or the lunar new-year, the residents of the lower village assemble in the street and begin a climb up to the upper village. The parade includes costumed characters and banner jugglers. The banners are hung from long bamboo poles and men try to balance them straight in the air as they process up the road. This feat is more difficult than it sounds because of the wind. Even a slight breeze can send the poles teetering as the men try to keep up with them. Every so often they tilt past the point of no return and everyone tries to catch the pole before it hits the ground. I used to think I was cool when I could balance a ruler on my finger for a few seconds but this is much more impressive. I am not sure why they do it. There may be some historical reason that I couldn’t find on the internet or by asking people. All I know is this juggling act is now being assessed as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Beijing.
This is a movement to protect some of the important cultural history of Beijing. It includes giving stipends to keep the rituals or crafts alive. For instance: the lantern festival that marks the end of Spring Festival is dependant on the lantern makers who know how to create the nine types of lanterns traditionally used. They can’t make enough money now during the year to sustain them as they only sell the lanterns during this season. So the government gives them approximately 8,000 yuan a year to help to keep them going and in turn they have to work to pass the skill on to another generation. Things that might fall under the protection of the ICHB are Peking Opera, Acupuncture, lantern making, preparing traditional food, playing traditional instruments and of course banner juggling.
So back at the village the intangible jugglers are making their way up the hill. Being a photographer I am on a shooting high! I am running ahead to get shots as they pass, shoot like a madman and then run ahead again. I am up on a hill trying to get an overall photo, down on the road trying for close ups and low angle shots. I am not even pretending to be picking my shots. I am shooting everything I see. I feel like a kid in a candy store. After shooting and photo editing for more than three decades, I should be so over that feeling but I don't care. I am enjoying being there and having my camera to capture it is a huge bonus. There are men at the front playing drums and guys dressed like emperors and people in the back playing off key sounding flutes and cymbals. It is awesome!
I am taken back to time I spent in a small village in Oaxaca called San Miguel Tlacotepec. Yes regular spelling. I was there for the festival of their patron saint. Michael or Miguel as we call him in Mexico. He is my patron saint as well so I feel like I connected with the people there. They paraded down the streets in costumes that seemed to have a strange history for Mexico. Dressed as Moors and cowboys and devils they had the same off-key sounding bands of musicians and the whole village came out to watch.
Now I am in some small mountain village that I can barely pronounce in China and feeling very much at home. The group from the lower village meets up at the top with the group from the upper village and all of a sudden there is a mosh-pit environment as everyone crowds around to try to catch what goes on in the middle of said mosh-pit. Not knowing what was about to happen I was happy in my ignorance and had run ahead thinking they were going farther. Now I tried to get a look at whatever was happening in the middle of the crowd. I hear some singing. I try to get a peek. I see some incense smoke rising. I move around the crowd like a little piglet who can’t find a teet. I resort to my old days as a photographer and push my way up close enough to see the elders sitting in a circle. Maybe I missed something really cool but it didn’t seem to warrant the crush of souls that were squeezing in for a look. As far as I could glean from the photos I took by holding the camera over my head was the men sit in a circle sing some songs and light some incense. I am just hoping that they didn’t do something extra interesting because I couldn’t squeeze myself in close enough without throwing little old ladies out of my way.
Soon the crowd starts to move. The elders are on the move and things are starting to happen. Off-key music is starting to fill the mountain air. I just go with the flow and soon I find myself in the middle of a bunch of women dressed in colorful costumes and with make up on their faces. I am not sure what the significance of the make up was but one kind or looked like and Asian Mini Pearl. The crowd decides to move forward and I am in the front. I feel elbows and hands in my back. Seems like they decided to use me as a battering ram to open a lane. Apparently there are like 20 ways to say I’m sorry in Mandarin and I didn’t know any of them as I was pushed though the dancers and audience. I just tried to give one of those “ I’m sorry maam, I am just the battering ram they are using to open a hole” kind of faces to the people I was running over. I guess the parade somehow got behind me so I was blocking progress. An elderly man wearing a red armband and holding a baton of some sort had been sticking the thing in my back to move me forward. Finally I feel the crowd open and I turn around and see the procession heading for me and I am in a good position to shoot.
I shoot tons of photos and soon there are Lion Dancers who seem to come out of nowhere. It is a photographers dream. The narrow streets are filled with color and banners and the banner jugglers are still trying to keep control over their bamboo poles which occasionally fall on what I think are electrical lines or someone’s roof. I imagine the people who created this event didn’t take into consideration that someday the village would want or need electricity and the possible hazards a long pole falling against the lines could cause. Hey you can’t think of everything.
I am on visual overload and have filled up multiple cards with photos and decide to head back to meet my companions. On the way back I spot a little tiny elderly lady who I caught a few shots of earlier before getting swept away by the crowd. I wanted to take more photos of her and so I approached her with my trusty Ni Hao and asked her with sign language if I could take her photo. She smiled and seemed to think it was funny that someone would want her photo but signaled to me that it was ok. That portrait is one of my favorite photos so far. She gave me a big toothless smile first and then a comfortable content smile that just made me feel happy. I only with I had the language skills to find out her story or at least someone close to interpret for me. I photographed her and thanked her and shook her hand and left feeling very fulfilled and lucky to be there in that spot on that day. It felt very much tangible.
Juggling Banners
My favorite image so far.
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