**7. Coda to the** *Sai:* **A Special Concert**

The Double-Fourth Temple Festival continued to be celebrated on the morning of the third day (11 May) with a special concert of traditional folk and ritual music prevalent in the Shangdang region for centuries. This was an open-air concert held in the courtyard before

the main hall of the Bixia Temple. Starting at 8:30 a.m. with the lighting of firecrackers, the concert was presented as a stand-alone instrumental performance open to all (Figure 60).

**Figure 60.** The Concert Opens with Firecrackers.

The musicians invited to give the concert remained from the Assembly of Eight Sounds, headed by Wang Jinzhi from Xiliu village. This small-scale concert consisted of two sessions devoted, respectively, to tune-title or named-song (*qupai* 曲牌) music and wind-instrument (*chuizou* 吹奏) music. The musical instruments come in two main categories, woodwind instruments and percussion instruments, the former including the suona, the *sheng* 笙 pipe, the *bili* 篳篥 pipe, the *dizi* flute and the *bangzi* 梆子 clapper, and the latter the drum, the *luo* 鑼 gong and the *bo* 鈸 cymbal (Figure 61). Predominant among the instruments is the suona, which is widely used in a variety of rituals and festivals in northern China (Jones 2007).

The first session presented a variety of music from thirteen tune titles or melodic models, i.e., 'A Four-Clause Sentence' (*Siju ju* 四句句), 'Happy Dongdong' (*Xi dongdong* 喜咚咚), 'The Moon Over the Stern of a Boat on the Gu River' (*Gushao yue* 沽梢月), 'Old Sichuan Tune' (*Lao Chuandiao* 老川調), 'Worshipping the Drum' (*Baigu* 拜鼓), 'An Evergreen Goblet' (*Changqing bei* 長青杯), 'A Five-Flower Cup' (*Wuhua zhan* 五花盞), 'A Grand View of Lanterns' (*Daguan deng* 大觀燈), 'Joy for All Under Heaven' (*Putian le* 普天樂), 'Ten Thousand Years of Happiness' (*Wannian huan* 萬年歡), 'Enjoy Lotus Flowers' (*Shang lianhua* 賞蓮花), 'Five Blessings in Their Glory' (*Wufu rong* 五福榮) and 'A Tune on Flowers in Bloom' (*Kaihua diao* 開花調), which are at the core of the repertoire of the Assembly of Eight Sounds in the Shangdang region (Wang 2016a). They each consist of ten or more tunes or melodies. Some of these tune titles, such as *Wannian huan* and *Putian le*, have their origins in Tang and Song court music and Yuan and Ming operatic music, and some, such as *Xi dongdong* and *Kaihua diao*, in local folk music and mountain songs (*shange* 山 歌). Most of them have been incorporated into the music of the two popular forms of Shangdang theatre, Shangdang Clapper Opera (*Shangdang bangzi*) and Shangdang Lotus Opera (*Shangdang laozi* 上黨落子) (Wang 2016a).

**Figure 61.** Eight Musicians from the Assembly of Eight Sounds.

The concert also provided a good opportunity for the musicians to demonstrate their technical skills in playing woodwind instruments. Presented in the second session were two pieces of operatic music from Shangdang Clapper Opera, *The Crow Mountain* (*Wuya shan* 烏鴉山) and *A Great Birthday Celebration* (*Da baishou* 大拜壽), the former belonging to the style of *chui* 吹 and the latter to *erhuang* 二 in the musical system of Shangdang Clapper Opera. They both enjoy grea<sup>t</sup> popularity with locals, who have no difficulty seeing in their mind's eye scene change and stage performance through the changes in melody, tone, pitch, rhythm and timbre of the music (Wang 2016a). This type of musical performance is popularly known as *chuixi* 吹戲because the woodwind instruments represented by the suona, when blown (*chui* 吹), produce sound images of theatrical performance (*xi* 戲) (Wang 2016a).

The concert ran from 8:30 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. at noon, with a 30-minute break between the first and second sessions. The concert attracted a grea<sup>t</sup> many people in the first place, and some of them came from neighbouring villages and towns. Having performed for three hours, the musicians all looked tired, but their faces lightened up instantly at a grea<sup>t</sup> roar of applause breaking out from the audience. The concert was over with the melody still lingering on the final note. A grea<sup>t</sup> wave of relief washed them over. I went up to Wang Jinzhi, asking whether I could have a picture with his troupe. 'Yes, of course, but please be quick. You know, we haven't had our lunch yet, and we have to ge<sup>t</sup> to Tunliu this afternoon to perform at a wedding ceremony this evening' (Wang 2016a). I noticed a small, weary, rueful smile crossing his face.

I gave a grateful bow to him. After the picture was taken, I saw him and his troupe off at the Divine Pool outside the Bixia Temple. I quickly engaged him in a conversation about Shangdang *yuehu* and his troupe. He spoke with a strong local accent about ten or more minutes, answering my questions, until a minibus came to pick them up. I waved goodbye to him, and then I walked back to the Bixia Temple only to find some people beginning to dismantle the structure of the Incense Pavilion and take down the paper and flower decorations from it. At the same time, I saw a female spirit medium (*shenpo* 神婆) performing séance in the courtyard (Figure 62) and some old village women queuing up to

offer incense to the goddess in the sleeping hall with a *shenpo* singing and chanting inside (Figure 63).

**Figure 62.** Female Medium Spirit Performs Séance in the Courtyard.

**Figure 63.** Female Medium Spirit Chants in Sleeping Hall.

Now I realised that the Double-Fourth Temple Festival had eventually reached its end. After two and a half days of heightened celebrations, life was returning to normal in Jiacun, so was the functioning of the Bixia Temple.
