介绍茂名年例英文稿

Yearly Worship, it is a unique festival in the west of Guangdong. It is the most important impotant festival of a year by the local people, peculiar to the city of Maoming and a small portion of Zhanjiang. Especially in Maoming, a popular saying has it that “YEARLY WORSHIP IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SPRING FESTIV AL”. People who work outside the city can not go back home for Spring Festival, but they should be at home on the day of Yearly Worship. Many people believe that the orgin of the festival has something to do wiith the worship of Madame Xian. She is the heroine of Lingnan area for protecting the area by fighting with the enenmy in Sui Dynasty. Madame Xian has become the main God of worship in Western Guangdong and Hainan Island ever since the Tang Dynasty.

Every village choose a fixed date as the day of the yearly of his village, so the yearly festival is "on the same day," For example, my village set the day on the sixth day of the first month of the lunar year.The purpose of the festival is to worship God, pray for good weather in the new year, pray for good harvest, pray for peace and prosperity. So the first and important thing is the worship the God.

Auturally, there are a lot of preparation before that day. Some are done before the New YEAR’S EVE. Usually, every household should send a representative to the meeting for holding the yearly worship festival. Likely, they will distribute the work at the meeting.

Generally speaking, there are three clues of the activities. One track public ceremonies as the center; the second is a variety of cultural activities; the third is to entertain friends and family banquets and pleasure. Three lines at the same time to expand, that is, during the climax of the three lines converge, friends gather, the more interactive and on behalf of the more successful festival run.

First, public ceremonies. On the morning of that day, there is a GOD TOUR. They will ask the Bodhisattvas’ permission to go on a tour. Then they will carry the statues out for a tour according to the predetermined route. Usually, the team of the God tour involves the Taoist , the men who carry the colorful flags or the ghost ship, the men who roll the cart with the Bodhisattva or incense burner on it and the men who play the drum, suona, and many other instuments. When the Bodhisattvas pass by your house, every household should go out to the street to welcome the Bodhisattvas, incense them and set off the firecrackers after the team walks away.

Then the team will stay at the square where every household offer the Bodhisattvas the sarcisices. At the same time, people will pray for something when kneeling and bowing. As for me, worship is long and complicated. It seems to take two or three hours on that day. There are so many gods,kitchen god, dragon god, etc.

Also, at night, people will burn the ghost ship in the nearest river which means burning the ghosts and wishing for a good year. In some places, they are required to turn off the eletric lights and only torches are allowed when the ghost ship passes by.

Second, in order to please the gods, we will have various folk art performances like dragon and lion dances, acrobatic performance, Cantonese opera,and so on.

Third, we will invite our relatives and friends to our home to have a reunion. At the time, the household will treat the guests a big meal. A warm and nice chatting will warm up the relationship.