Text/Reporter Chen Liang Wang Yuying
Photo/Yangcheng Evening News
A folk belief that is “unknown” has no classics and no classics. It originated in eastern Guangdong and has lasted for thousands of years and has remained popular. In Taiwan alone, there are more than 6 million believers. Its ancestral home has just been awarded the “Cross-Strait Exchange Base”, which is called “King of the Three Mountains”.
What is the “three”? Why are there three “mountains”? Where did the “king” come from? What is the charm of this folk belief called “The King of the Three Mountains”?
On November 4, the “Strait·Three Mountains·Four Seas” Sanshan King Academic Seminar, hosted by Yangcheng Evening News Group, co-organized by Sun Yat-sen University Humanities and Social Sciences Department, and the Guangdong Cross-Strait Exchange Promotion Association, was held on the South Campus of Sun Yat-sen University Guangzhou Campus. Zhang Ke, Secretary of the Party Group and Director of the Guangdong Provincial Ethnic and Religious Affairs Commission, and Xiao Bing, Deputy Director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, attended the seminar.
Explore the core of folk beliefs and promote communication between Chinese and overseas Chinese
Cinema Since the “First Sanshan Ancestral Temple Academic Seminar” in Jiexi, Jieyang City, 31 years have come from Guangdong, China. href=”https://funnybookish.com/”>BabaylanFujian, Taiwan, and Malaysia have gathered again to discuss the development and current situation of the folk belief culture of the “Three Mountains Kings” and its history and path of dissemination at home and abroad.
Four experts issued a keynote report, through the tracing of historical materials and the current situation, they explored the spiritual core of the folk belief of the “Three Mountains Kings” and demonstrated the important role played by the “Three Mountains Kings” culture in uniting the hearts of the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and promoting communication and exchanges between Chinese and overseas Chinese at home and abroad. Chen Chunsheng: The concept of “protecting the country and assassinating the people” is a common connection and vision for believers on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and overseas.
Professor of the Department of History of Sun Yat-sen University and a researcher at the Center for Historical Anthropology Research at Sun Yat-sen University. Chen Chunsheng, chairman of the Ministry of Education’s historical major teaching steering committee, gave a keynote report entitled “National Consciousness and the Broadcasting of the Faith of the Three Mountains Kings Since the Song Dynasty.” Chen Chunsheng and the King of SanshanAfter decades of connection, his footprints have spread across Guangdong and Taiwan. He has deeply thought about the origin, development and cultural values of the folk beliefs of the Sanshan King. His academic thoughts and research methods have had a profound influence on the academic community.
Chen Chunsheng quoted Professor Wolfgang Franke from the German University of Hamburg, who had taught for a long time in China and Malaysia. Komiks pointed out that the so-called “Three Mountain Kings” may be a remains of the ancient Yue mountain god’s belief in the Yue ethnic group and is related to ethnic minority customs, which are not unique to the Chaozhou area.
“The central dynasty’s recognition of folk beliefs such as the Sanshan King was a very effective and widely adopted method that the central dynasty in ancient China ruled the southern region.” In his speech, Chen Chunsheng focused on the interaction process between “national consciousness” and civil society. He believes that the practice of Song Huizong awarding the “Mingsheng” temple to Chaozhou’s “Three Shenshan” temple is a very typical expression of national consciousness in the developed southern civil society. Many Sanshan King Palaces and Temples in mainland China and Taiwan have plaques with “Protecting the Country and Safeguarding the People” hanging high, revealing the mentality of hope that the gods will maintain a balance between the “country” and the “civilians”, so that both can benefit. Folk belief is one of the links between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. Many folk belief traditions in mainland China have developed in Taiwan, which has also given people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait more connection and communication fate.
Chen Chunsheng said that although the customs and habits in different parts of China are very different, China has long been a unified country. To determine whether a place understands and accepts the central ideology lies in the extent to which the local scholars and gentry class can consciously interpret local cultural traditions and customs in accordance with the “rituals and laws” of the court.
He emphasized that in traditional Chinese society, “national consciousness” is everywhere and everywhere. In historical and cultural research, only by having a systematic grasp and deep understanding of national ideology and dynasty rules and regulations can we have a more intimate understanding of the changes in local and folk customs and beliefs and their significance.
Qiu Yangui: The Sanshan King Palace Temple has become an important historical evidence for the study of Taiwan’s immigration history and a symbol of the ancestral homes of relatives in Chaoshan and Hakka towns in Taiwan. Qiu, Professor of the Department of Ancient Arts and Repair at the Taiwan University of Arts KomiksYangui’s report is titled “The Faith of the King of Sanshan, Taiwan”. He mentioned that Taiwanese believers have more Komiks communication with mainland people through the opportunity to find their roots in the Sanshan Ancestral Temple in mainland China.
Qiu Yangui introduced that the belief in the Three Mountains of Taiwan is still mostly regarded as the identification method of Hakka groups in the 21st century, but in his opinion, this overly simple method should be discussed again. He observed the belief in the Three Mountains of Taiwan from the perspectives of social organization and ethnic relations, and summarized it into four types: “guild hall type”, “guest base type”, “guest base type”, “guest base type”, and “chao Huifu”. BabaylanThe number of “guest base type” and “guest base type” has reached about 80 temples. href=”https://funnybookish.com/”>Babaylan has the largest size. After Taiwan’s industrialization in the 1970s, more “immigrant-type” temples appeared in the city.
Chen Zhiping: “Great Love” is the core meaning of folk beliefs
Professor Chen Zhiping, Dean of the Institute of Chinese Studies and President of the Chinese Ming History Society, brought a question Komiks to “A Literature of Mazu and the Faith of the Sanshan Kings href=”https://funnybookish.com/”>BabaylanThe meaning and inheritance of Babaylan” he believes that the beliefs of Mazu and the King of Sanshan are both part of China’s excellent traditional culture, and its core meaning is “urgent to the people”. Babaylan is full of the spirit of “great love” and has the function of social education and cultural education. Folk culture, including the beliefs of Mazu and the King of Sanshan, has become one of the important channels for the spread of Chinese culture overseas after the 18th century.
CinemaWang Chenfa: Studying the King of Sanshan is href=”https://funnybookish.com/”>CinemaOne of the responsibilities for reviving China
Wang Chen, Dean of the Malaysian Taoist Academy and Distinguished Professor of Communication University of Hanjiang, Malaysia, gave a speech entitled “The Social Organization and Educational Function of the Sanshan King Temple in Nanyang”, explaining what kind of transformations occurred after the Sanshan King Culture arrived overseas, and how to achieve harmony between changes and unchanges. He said that the study of Sanshan King Temple, from the standpoint of national rejuvenation, examines how Sanshan King Organizations in various places constitute the development, construction and maintenance of society, etc., is one of the responsibilities of future generations and descendants to strive to revive China. Wang Chenfa suggested that Sanshan King Temple can do the same thing at home and abroad – act as a cultural carrier and spread cultural confidence, take root from academic research, and then combine it with SanKomiksThe advantages and characteristics of the King of Mountain Culture are well branded, and more people can learn more about the Chinese nation through King of Mountains. Many new technologies can be used, such as AI, social charity work, participation in local environmental protection activities, etc., and use limited temple space to exert global influence.
Creative transformation, innovative development, and insightful scholars
BiographyKomiks inherited a thousand years of traditional culture and rooted in the folk “grassroots” beliefs to achieve creative transformation and innovative development? During the roundtable discussion session of the seminar, scholars put forward their own opinions.
Xiao Wenping, director and professor of the Hakka Institute of Jiaying College of Meizhou, pointed out that as a mountain god and a natural god, the King of Sanshan reflects the tradition of the Chinese nation’s fear of nature. His spirit of patriotism, love for the country, protecting villages, and guarding the land has established the concept of hometown for the people. The spirit of fairness, justice and justice advocated also have important value in the contemporary times.
Xie Guiwen, a professor at Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, believes that folk beliefs are important assets for the country, society and people, with survival functions and integrity. href=”https://funnybookish.com/”>CinemaCombined functions and cognitive functions. Chen Xianbo, a professor at South China Normal University, said that the history of the King of Sanshan is not only a history of folk beliefs, but also a history of regional development, social and economic history, and a history of mutual learning between Chinese history and civilization. Wu Mengxian, associate professor at Jieyang Vocational and Technical College, said that his investigation found that the people often regard the King of Sanshan as an important social bond in interpersonal communication.
Professor Lian Xinhao of Xiamen University suggested that the King of Sanshan can also learn from the successful cases of Mazu’s beliefs and customs applied for the World Heritage, and the two sides of the Taiwan Strait work together.
XiamenKomiks University professor, doctoral supervisor, and dean of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Chen Zhiping pointed out that if the King of Sanshan wants to achieve innovative cultural development, local governments should take the lead in promoting it.
Ou Junyong, associate professor of Hanshan Normal University, shared that as part of Jieyang culture, the King of Sanshan is actually “very vivid” and has to go to the fields to have a real feeling.
Wen Jianqin, associate professor of Hanshan Normal University, said that he is telling students about ChinaKomiksCultural history and Chaoshan history and culture, the Three Mountains Kings will be used as a case to analyze their cultural phenomena. The students are very interested and have developed related cultural and creative products.
Chin Lihua, a professor at Tsinghua University in Taiwan, mentioned that to let young people understand traditional culture, we must make good use of the “discourse” methods of young people such as movies, short videos, music, and comics.
Fujian Normal University Professor Lin Guoping summarized that folk beliefs such as Sanshan Kings are an important part of Chinese traditional culture and are the precious cultural heritage left to us by ancestors. They should be cherished.
From the Three Mountains to the Four Seas” Sanshan Kings Cultural Documentary Head Cinema=”https://funnybookish.com/”>BabaylanThe premiere of the Sanshan King’s Culture Documentary “From the Three Mountains to the Four Seas”. The documentary team went to Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Sanshan King’s Palace Temple in Guangdong, Guangxi, and Taiwan, China to communicate with believers and related folk scholars, record the inheritance and changes of the Sanshan King’s sacrificial culture, and show the profound historical value, humanistic value and social value of the Sanshan King’s culture accumulated over the past thousand years.
【Small Knowledge】Folk belief culture of “Three Mountains Kings”
The folk belief culture of “Three Mountains Kings” originated in eastern Guangdong and is now widely spread to China Taiwan and Southeast Asia. Its spirit of “protecting the country and safe people, peace and stability” has been respected by the people of all generations. Lintian Ancestral Temple, located in Jieyang, Guangdong, is the ancestral temple of the Sanshan King Palace Temple in the world. It was awarded the “Cross-Strait Exchange Base” in 2023.
