Shandong Province
QuanBei Village
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Lang Village
LiShe Village
LuLiu Village
MiaoJia Village
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Nie Jiazhuang Village
Gaomi City
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Lishe Village Chapters:
Cultural Heritage: Peking Opera and Cricket Cages from Gourds
The Peking Opera is popular, and its characters are often portrayed on gourds. Dough flower characters are also often related to the opera. Villagers often participate in the operas, which are held in the markets where there is a lot of activity. It is believed that if you worship a god, he will be there, which is the purpose of the operas. Villagers will often pay to be in the opera, because it is not only for their own enjoyment, but for the gods’ pleasure as well. The opera is one of the many forms of folk art that is deeply related to the gods.
Gourds were originally used as cricket cages. There are two kinds of cricket cages: one is for crickets that are kept for their sounds, and there is the other that is for fighting crickets. If the gourd is for a sound cricket, there will be holes in the cage. The cricket culture of China includes a two thousand year history of singing and fighting crickets. Before the Tang Dynasty (500 BCE- 618 CE) people enjoyed the strong melodies of crickets. During the dynasty (618-906 CE) people began to keep the crickets in captivity to listen to the music they made. In the Song dynasty (960-1278 CE) cricket fighting became widely popular as a sport. During this time it became a popular game and sport for both adults and children. During the Qing dynasty the government officially banned cricket fighting because of its growing popularity. Although it is not banned now, it is illegal to bet on cricket fights. Today, crickets are still popular for their songs and their fighting and can be found in markets and on streets in many Chinese cities.
