Festivals and games

In the traditional Chinese way of life there was always present the festive culture tradition. Each celebration or a festival was a dramatic spectacle, a show, an entertainment - a way of casting off the shackles of an official morale, it combined the elements of magic and carnival, a religious sacrament and an esthetic admiration. In the Chinese Year cycle spring and autumn rituals are distinguished. The spring rituals are connected with the beginning of the economic year, with fertility magic and the expectations of a good crop. The autumn rituals are aimed mainly at thanking generous gods for the given crop and for the purification of the epidemics of the going year. Celebrated were also the winter and summer solstices, though with time the winter solstice turned out to be engulfed by the Lunar New Year and the summer solstice was incorporated in the Dragon Boat Festival. There are also rituals for the four seasons in the yearly cycle of festivals. Alongside common holidays and the main dates of the astronomic calendar, there exist  community, state, professional and religious celebrations.

Many festivals are accompanied by games. Sportive competitions, wrestlers' and strongmen's performances were an obligatory attribute of folk festivals. The games had a meaning of their own as well.

A Chinese Trained Mouse. Zhou-Pei-chun. China. Beijing.   The beginning of the 20th century.		Darts Throwing. Zhou-Pei-chun. China. Beijing.    The beginning of the 20th century.