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First Published in 2007. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
List of contents
New Year, The God of Wealth, New Year Customs, The Budding or 2nd Moon, The Feast of Excited Insects, The Beginning of Spring, The T'ien Hou Festival, The Fourth Moon, The Tam Kung Festival, The Ch'ing Ming Festival, The Dragon Boat Festival, The Lotus Moon, The Double Seventh, Festival of the Hungry Ghosts, The Moon Festival, The Moon and Marriage, The Mister Rabbit, The Harvest Moon, The Gods of the Measure, The Double Ninth, The Tenth M'oon, The Kindly Moon, The Eleventh Moon, The Bitter Moon, New Year Preliminaries, The New Year Fair, The Twelfth Month, Thanksgiving- Day, A Boat People's Wedding, Fortune-telling, Marriages Made in Heaven, Funerals, A Jlink-warming, Wedding Walk, The Chicken's Bride, Clairvoyance, The Meaning of Presents, The Chinese Cuisine, Betrothal and Wedding Customs, Symbolism in Chinese Art, Primitive Religion, The Star Gods, Feng SI1Ui, The Taoist Pope, A Chinese Bestiary, The Home Physician, Patron Saints, Moon Cakes, Secret Societies, The Earth Gods, The Eight Immortals, Purveyor to the Gods, Luck, Religion and the Chinese, Children in China, Burial Customs, Charms and Talismans; List of Illustrations; List of Plates
About the author
Valentine Rodolphe Buckhardt
Summary
First published in 2007. An encyclopaedic account of traditional Chinese festivals, customs and beliefs, lavishly illustrated with line drawings and paintings, this remarkable work by an Englishman who spent twenty years in China from the Imperial aftermath through the establishment of Communism, gives fascinating insights into a complex culture poised between past and present. Burckhardt's beautifully written and detailed work includes the rites practiced by the Manchu royal court and the rituals permitted under the Communist and Nationalist regimes, the festivals of working people and villagers as well as the ceremonies of the mandarins of Peking and Hong Kong, in all seasons of the year. He was especially close to the renowned Boat People of the former colony, and gives a unique account of life abroad the harbour junks and their sea-borne celebrations. Among the subjects dealt with are Chinese cuisine, the meaning of presents, secret societies, the Chinese calendar, cats (the Chinese prefer cats with yellow eyes), Chinese dress, jade carving, feng shui, etiquette, the hundreds of gods of house and wayside, temples and their guardians, and all the great festivals - those of the Moon, the Dragon Boats, the Hungry Ghosts, the Magnolia, the New Year and many more. Chinese creeds and customs were Burkhardt's passion, and no better account of them will ever be written.
