投稿類別：英文寫作類

篇名 ： 搶孤文化中的薪火相傳 The Inheritance and Promotion of Toucheng Qianggu Culture

作者： 林旻柔。國立宜蘭高商。應外三忠 洪貞至。國立宜蘭高商。應外三忠 莊瑄亞。國立宜蘭高商。應外三忠

指導老師： 郭書源老師

搶孤文化中的薪火相傳 The Inheritance and Promotion of Toucheng Qianggu Culture

I. Introduction

I.1 Motivation Yilan has many different forms and unique traditional customs due to disaster relief. For example, Wujie tsouwang, the ritual for gods to patrol villages and carry sedan chairs over a fire. Yilan Loy Krathong, where people release water lanterns on Hungry Ghost Festival to pay homage to the gods for disaster relief, Pudu is to pray for peace, and so on. These traditional cultures have been passed down from generation to generation for several years. Some are suspended, some are disappearing, and some are still finding a way to be passed down. As time goes by, many of the traditional customs have lost their original meaning. As kids grow up in Yilan, we observed Toucheng Qianggu suspended for some years and then back to be held. Hence, this study aims to know what makes Qianggu stop and reopen. We also wonder whether Qianggu still retains its original meaning.

I.2 Purpose The purpose of our research includes three parts. First of all, we want to understand the historical and cultural background of Toucheng Qianggu and how it operates. Second, we want to know the challenges that Qianggu is facing. Last, we want to integrate Qianggu into modern society to retain its original cultural meaning and add innovative ideas to contemporary society.

I.3 Research Questions 1.How can Qianggu move on to fit in modern society? 2.What are the challenges that Qianggu is facing? 3.What are the developments Qianggu have for the future? I.4 Methodology

I.4.1 Participants We interviewed Lian Sheng, Lin, on November 25, 2020. He is the chairman of Zhongyuan Festival Association of Toucheng . He is actively promoting the traditional culture of Qianggu in Toucheng. I.4.2 Instruments To clarify and understand the cultural meaning of Qianggu, we visited the Zhongyuan Festival Association of Toucheng Township. Our interview questions have three sections: First of all, how to solve the problem that Qianggu is facing, and then what is the solution of the problem, and how Qianggu should be integrated into modern society. Our interview questions have three sections: First of all, how to solve the problem that Qianggu is facing, and then what is the solution to the problem, and how traditional culture like Qianggu should be integrated into modern society.

Table 1. Phase 1 Interview Participants

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搶孤文化中的薪火相傳 The Inheritance and Promotion of Toucheng Qianggu Culture

Location Date Interviewees Position

Zhongyuan Festival Association Nov 25, 2020 Lian Sheng,Lin 林連生 Chairman of Toucheng Township, Yilan

Picture 1. Photo with Chairman Lin

Zhongyuan Festival Association Nov 25, 2020 Lian Sheng,Lin 林連生 Chairman of Toucheng Township, Yilan County

Picture 2. Photo with Chairman Lin

Zhongyuan Festival Association Nov 25, 2020 Lian Sheng,Lin 林連生 Chairman of Toucheng Township, Yilan County

Picture 3. Photo with Chairman Lin

II. Body

II.1 Background

II.1.1 The Origin of Qianggu

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搶孤文化中的薪火相傳 The Inheritance and Promotion of Toucheng Qianggu Culture

When the Han Race left their homes and came to Yilan to cultivate, Toucheng was the first developed city in Yilan because it was a traffic junction of water and land passages to reach Yilan Plain. Many nameless people lost their lives because of fighting the feud or the epidemic disease in coming to Yilan (Yang,1992). However, in Taoism, they think the soul that no one worships will become a homeless ghost. Many homeless ghosts have nowhere to go, so the villagers developed Pudu to revere their ancestors and honor the dead souls to help these homeless ghosts (Lin, n. d). Over time, this tradition has been transformed into helping the poor in the nearby area. That is to say, people distributed the sacrifices to the poor after Pudu ended on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month every year); however, many of the poor fought for the offering and then got injured. To solve this problem, they came up with a way, Qianggu, to stop the fight. (Tsai, 2015).

II.1.2 The Process of Qianggu Toucheng Qianggu is one of the ritual activities held in . During Toucheng Zhongyuan Festival, each in Toucheng will make a ghost tower, about eleven meters high and eight meters wide. The villagers then deliver them to the venue on the day of the festival. (Lanyang Museum). On top of the Tower are tied up the offering, such as squid, meat dumplings, rice vermicelli, etc. Table 2 shows the steps of Toucheng Qianggu. There are many prerequisites before the start off. People need to inform gods and ghosts before participating in activities, such as Soil Breaking Ceremony, Invocation Prayer to Heavenly God, and Lantern Pole, Tsunshenchienchiao, and a parade of floating lanterns and Lantern-Floating Ceremony. The most important thing in the whole event is the Qianggu competition at the end of the seventh lunar month. People team up to climb the ghost pole to grab the flag of victory. At the end of the Qianguu, the Daoist priest will disperse the ghosts. The ritual to dispersing ghosts is Tiao Chung Kuei. Also, please note that for steps 3,6,11, and 14, we use Romanization System to translate as lack of proper sayings in English.

Table 2 The Process of Qianggu Step Name Descriptions Picture

Soil Breaking Ceremony Prayed to the Heavenly Step1 (場地破土) God, house guard, and Invocation Prayer to gnomes Heavenly God (祝告天神)

授：文化銀行

授：頭城搶孤專輯 P.21

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搶孤文化中的薪火相傳 The Inheritance and Promotion of Toucheng Qianggu Culture

Step2 Make Rice Shed and Make rice sheds and rice Rice Tower towers (製作飯棚、飯棧)

授：水蜻蜓’s blog

Step3 Kai Meng Pu Shih Make food offerings for (開蒙普施) ghosts

授：文化銀行

Step4 Lantern Pole (豎燈篙) Raise up long bamboo as a guide for ghosts to come and receive sacrifices.

授：蘋果即時

Step5 Set up the Ghost shed Building the Ghost shed platform platform (架設孤棚)

授：Billy 的旅行日記

Step6 Tsun Shen Chien Chiao (尊 Inviting gods to 神鑑醮) participate

授：太報

Step7 Announce the Schedule (發 A ritual of praying 表章呈) through mantras.

Step8 Make ghost towers and Make ghost towers and ghost poles spread tallow on the (製孤棧、孤柱) ghost poles.

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搶孤文化中的薪火相傳 The Inheritance and Promotion of Toucheng Qianggu Culture

授：中時新聞網

Step9 A parade of floating The water lantern leads lanterns (水燈遶境) the way for ghosts in the Lantern-Floating water to receive Ceremony (放水燈) sacrifices.

授：DIGIPHOTO

Step10 Set up ghost shed and ghost Pulling ghost towers up towers on the platform of the (架孤棚、棧柱) ghost shed.

授：強尼的老窩

Step11 Tapukoyi A Pudu ceremony for (大普科儀) three consecutive days.

授：宜蘭新聞網

Step12 Climb up the Rice shed A warm-up match before (搶飯棚) climbing up the rice shed

授：Billy 的旅行日記

Step13 Climb up the Ghost shed A climbing up pole-race (搶孤棚)

授：水蜻蜓’s blog

Step14 Tiao Chung Kuei (跳鍾馗) A dance to disperse the ghosts

授：微笑台灣

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搶孤文化中的薪火相傳 The Inheritance and Promotion of Toucheng Qianggu Culture

II.1.3 The difference between Toucheng And Qianggu There are only two cities in Taiwan holding Qianggu events. One is in Toucheng, and the other is in Hengchun. Although they both name it Qianggu, there are four different things about Qianggu between these two cities. First, Toucheng Qianggu is held on the last day of the seventh lunar month, while Hengchun is on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month. Second, the height of their ghost shed is different as well. Hengchun Qianggu is thirty-meter height, whereas Toucheng Qianggu's is forty-three meters (Chen, 2020). Third, the top of Toucheng Qianggu's ghost shed is full of offerings, but there is nothing on that in Hengchun. Last, when climbing to the ghost shed's highest point, the person must first hit the gong and draw the flag to win the victory in Hengchun. By contrast, Toucheng needs to draw out the flag only (Lin, 2020). In short, the difference of Qianggu in Toucheng and Hengchun varies, but they all provide unique cultural meanings to the public.

II.2 Findings

II.2.1 How can Qianggu move on to fit in modern society?

Qianggu is a traditional culture with a long history. In response to modern society,Qianggu has gradually transformed into a sports competition. Still, they have been passing on different activities, such as getting a trial of Qianggu's processes at the Lanyang Museum and the process of making a ghost tower in the Qianggu cultural park. At the same time, they continue to communicate with other places that are still holding Qianggu. To preserve this tradition, they are applying for intangible heritage. In addition to applying for intangible heritage, they also used modern media to promote and hold creative activities. However, Qianggu involves religion and taboos, so the Qianggu's original process must be maintained.

"Qianggu has a long history and culture, but in order to integrate into modern society, it is necessary to increase the money to attract people to participate in this competition. However, some religious cultures and traditions are involved, and we still insist on not changing to preserve traditional culture. At present, the Lanyang Museum has set up the activity of Qianggu and made ghost towers, inviting local elders to teach. People interested in the custom of Qianggu can experience and learn firsthand. We are also actively applying to the government for intangible heritage to preserve historical memory and traditional wisdom." (Mr. Lin)

II.2.2 What are the challenges that Qianggu is facing?

The biggest challenge now comes from three main aspects: funding, weather conditions, and workforce shortage. First is the political factor. Qianguu requires much money, but it is not easy to find sponsors during elections. Therefore, Qianguu needs to suspend every four years. Second is the weather condition because the Qianguu is held in the seventh month of the lunar calendar, a season of Typhoons. If typhoon strikes, it must be canceled due to safety considerations. The third is the workforce shortage as the ghost tower is handmade, requiring a massive crowd of people to finish it. However, facing an aging society, finding enough people to make the ghost tower is another challenge.

"The main reason for the suspension of the Qianguu is the election. The main source of funds for the Qianguu is sponsorship, and the Qianguu's biggest sponsors are the 6

搶孤文化中的薪火相傳 The Inheritance and Promotion of Toucheng Qianggu Culture

politicians. They often need elections, so the source of funding is very unstable. In addition to political factors, there are other factors such as weather and shortage of human resources." (Mr. Lin)

II.2.3 What are the developments Qianggu have for the future?

Although they use social media to promote Qianggu, they are not good at running the fan page. Lacking computer skills makes it challenging to promote Qianggu to the younger generations. Therefore, they hope to work hard in this direction.

"In order to attract more people to participate in Qianguu, we established a Facebook fan page to promote the activity. There is also a live youtube broadcast on the day of the event. We did not want to stay the same. We also held a creative sacrifice competition to attract more people to participate. However, if we want to continue the traditional culture, we still need the support and help of young people." (Mr. Lin)

III. Conclusion Traditional culture seems to be dispensable to modern people, and the meaning of culture is gradually disappearing. As children in Yilan, we want to learn about the history of Toucheng Qianguu and the difficulties encountered when Qianguu inheritance. We study Qianguu through literature exploration and field interviews to further understand the problems in inheritance. Through the interview, we found three main issues of inheritance: the lack of available venues, the ineffectiveness of event promotion, and the shortage of funding Although Toucheng Ghost Festival Working Committee faces many difficulties, they persist in taking action for the inheritance of Qianguu. They understand the importance of using social media, such as Facebook and live broadcast, to promote activities. Besides, they use local resources to continue to pass on the skills of this activity. For example, they work with the local museum to help people understand the meaning behind Qianguu. Moreover, they actively apply intangible heritage to retain the value of Qianguu. In addition, they also managed to hold different activities related to Qianguu. One of the most profound is the creative sacrifice competition. They attract other groups around Taiwan to participate in the activities. The significance of the cultural inheritance of Qianguu lies in understanding the hardships that the ancestors reclaiming this land for us and remind us to be grateful. Our ancestors actually cultivate these things we take for granted. Through the research, we hope that more people will know the cultural significance of Qianguu and the importance of cultural inheritance.

IV. References

DIGOPHOTO。2012 年 8 月 20 日，取自 https://reurl.cc/GdrjGy The News Lens 關鍵評論。2020 年 9 月 2 日，取自 https://reurl.cc/odWlMg 中時新聞網。2019 年 8 月 15 日，取自 https://reurl.cc/e98zWb 內政部台灣宗教百景全民票許選活動 & Temple Stay in Taiwan。2006 年 12 月 27 日，取自 https://reurl.cc/MdqqlW 7

搶孤文化中的薪火相傳 The Inheritance and Promotion of Toucheng Qianggu Culture

太報。2019 年 1 月 15 日，取自 https://reurl.cc/6ylvGO 文化銀行。n.d，取自 http://bankofculture.com/archives/1437 宜蘭新聞網。2018 年 6 月 1 日，取自 https://reurl.cc/V3Xz2R 微笑台灣。2019 年 7 月 23 日，取自 https://smiletaiwan.cw.com.tw/article/2098 蔡生達 （2015）。普渡時刻頭城搶孤。天下雜誌精采特刊，161，92–93。 頭城鎮民代表會（1992）。頭城搶孤。宜蘭縣：頭城中元祭典委員會。 蘋果即時。2013 年 8 月 31 日，取自 https://reurl.cc/ra896k

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