"Back home!" On March 18 (the ninth day of the second month of the Lunar Year of the Dragon), Feng Lun, 64, put down his luggage and bamboo crutches in front of his home, took a picture of the gown he wears every year, and walked into his home easily. From January 25 (the 15th day of the twelfth lunar month in the Year of the Rabbit) to Jianhe County, Qiandongnan, Fenglun has completed another round of "Spring Talk" in more than a month. In Pobei Village, Huaqiao Town, Shiqian County, dozens of "Spring Officials" like Feng Lun returned home before the Lunar Spring Equinox.

The "Spring Official" held a sacrificial ceremony before going out. Courtesy of Shiqian County Cultural Museum

"Say Spring" is the custom of being granted a surname in Pobei Village, Huaqiao Town, Shiqian County for thousands of years. There are 7 villagers' groups in Pobei Village, most of whom are surnamed Feng. During the first 10 days of the first lunar spring every year, "Spring Officials" gather at the entrance of the village to hold a travel ceremony. After the ceremony, everyone rushes to the destination as scheduled. After the end of spring, the "Spring Official" who went out returned before the lunar equinox. Once a year, every year, even in hard times, it never stopped.

According to the old "An Ran Biography of the Ming Dynasty", during the Xuande period of the Ming Dynasty, the Shiqian chief, Si Zheng, was in charge of the "Spring Festival". The etiquette and custom of "welcoming the spring" contained in Qianlong's "Official Records" has been popular since the Ming Dynasty. According to the Annals of Shiqian Prefecture (County), in the Ming and Qing dynasties, at the beginning of spring every year, the officials of Shiqian Prefecture and other officials had to pack up and form a team, tie up "awn gods and paper cattle", "greet spring in the eastern suburbs", ride horses on the street, "whip the spring ceremony", and then go to the south of the city to "persuade farmers", where the magistrate of Shiqian would "persuade farmers to plow" and take the lead in plowing. In the 1930s and 1940s, people with surnames of Feng went to the provincial government to apply for "licenses", and then said "spring" by region. Before the beginning of spring every year, "Spring Official" goes to thousands of families and is active in various villages for tens of days until the end of the journey before the spring equinox.

"Chun Guan" set out. Courtesy of Shiqian County Cultural Museum

As for "Shuochun" and "Chunguan", the representative work of human intangible cultural heritage - Twenty four Solar Terms · Shiqian Shuochun, edited by China Agricultural Museum and published by China Agricultural Publishing House, has such a note: "Shuochun" and "Chunguan" can be traced back to more than 2000 years ago. In order to let the people accurately grasp the seasons according to the calendar, the officials send people to all parts of the country to preach in the Spring Festival every year, so that the custom of saying spring and saying spring comes into being. Because all the propaganda personnel were sent by the government, they were named "Spring Official". According to Feng Wu, the national inheritor of intangible cultural heritage in the Dateng Group of Pobei Village, Huaqiao Town, the family name of Pobei Village was awarded the post of "Spring Official" in the Tang Dynasty, which has been thousands of years.

According to the ancestral rules, the "Spring Official" must wear a black gauze cap every time he travels, carry a "Spring Cow" tied with red cloth strips, hemp threads and blue paper, wear a long gown, carry a pocket on his back, lean on bamboo sticks, and go from village to village singing "Spring Words". It has been more than a month since we left here, and we have traveled all over the countryside with Shiqian as the center. When I was young, I told my grandfather and father that the youth from the Dateng Group of Pobei Village in Chunchun had been granted Qinghai. Now, he is a skilled "Chunguan" who won the first prize in the "Say Spring" contest in Huaqiao Town. It is understood that there are nearly 800 people in Pobei Village, and nearly half of the men can talk about spring. The second generation or even the third generation of most families can master the skill of "talking about spring". The customs that have been passed down for thousands of years have become a part of the local people's life, and many people have joined the "Say Spring" team.

"Shuochun" is not a simple persuasion and reminder. Shuochun Ci is fixed, with simple tunes, similar to contemporary rap art. Feng Wu introduced that "Shuochun" can be divided into "Shuochun" and "Shuochun". "Shuozhengchun" has fixed Spring Ci, which mainly includes "twenty-four farming solar terms", "fishing, logging, farming and reading", etc., covering history, geography, humanities and other aspects; "Shuoyuchun", also known as "Shuohuachun", is basically the same as "Shuozhengchun".

The "Spring Official" must be able to recite the "Twenty four Solar Terms of the Lunar Calendar", "Fishing and Woodcutting Reading", "Opening the Wealth and Holding the Door", "Spring Cattle with Five Plagues on Their Head", "Sending Spring Official" and other contents skillfully, saying that they can adapt to the circumstances in spring, and people familiar with the custom of "saying spring" also sing a duet with the "Spring Official" in the main room. When it comes to spring, the "Spring Official" will send out a lunar calendar and a copy of the God of Wealth spring card to every family, which is intended to persuade farmers to plough in spring and wish the host family good luck. Yu Yan, the vice principal of the Second Primary School of Shiqian County, recalled that when she grew up in Huaqiao, she was very familiar with the custom of "saying spring". Every year, "spring officials" came home, and the curtain of spring began.

In 2016, "The Twenty four Solar Terms - the time knowledge system and its practice formed by Chinese people through observing the annual movement of the sun" was included in the list of representative works of intangible cultural heritage of mankind. "Spring in Shiqian" is one of the most representative expansion lists of the project. In recent years, Shiqian has increased its efforts to excavate, protect and inherit the intangible cultural heritage of "Shuochun", introduced "Shuochun" into the campus, compiled "Shuochun" local teaching materials, let students participate in learning and singing, and enhance children's cultural self-confidence and cultural consciousness.

"Shuochun Class" of the Second Primary School of Shiqian County. Courtesy of Shiqian County Cultural Museum

Huaqiao Middle School and the Second Primary School of Shiqian County, where "Say Spring" entered the campus, have carried out inheritance activities in recent years. On every Tuesday, Thursday afternoon and Wednesday afternoon, Bao Zhengming, the provincial intangible culture inheritor, teaches students "Spring Talk" in Huaqiao Middle School and Shiqian No. 2 Primary School respectively; Feng Wu, a national inheritor, appears in the intangible cultural heritage training class in Pobei Village as a teacher every Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Shiqian County also organizes relevant events to promote the diversity of Spring Poetry and enrich its connotation; We organized forces to shoot the TV feature film "Say Spring" and actively spread the intangible cultural heritage in Shiqian.

Article/Lu Qingjian, reporter of Guizhou Daily Tianyan News

Editor/Liu Lichao

Second instance/Yao Man

Third instance/Huang Wei