Guangzhou is a city with a long history, and its geographical location, climate conditions and the convergence of multiple cultures have resulted in traditional folklore with distinctive Lingnan characteristics, including festivals, habits, social customs, emotional beliefs and folk art. Guangzhou’s folk crafts and traditional folk arts, which are famous at home and abroad, reflect the aesthetic sensibilities of Guangzhou people and are the crystallization of the wisdom of Lingnan people for thousands of years. Among them, Guangzhou embroidery is one of the “Four Great Embroideries” in China; Guangdong music, Cantonese opera and Lingnan painting school are known as the “Three Great Art Treasures of Lingnan” and so on.
In this article, we have compiled a comprehensive list of traditional cultural knowledge in Guangzhou, telling you what are the best traditional cultural customs in Guangzhou? What are the traditional festivals and cultural customs in Guangzhou? The first thing you need to do is to get to know more about it.
Origin of the name of Guangzhou
Guangzhou got its name during the Three Kingdoms period, when the Eastern Wu took possession of the southern part of Lingnan and set up Jiaozhou for jurisdiction. In the fifth year of Huangwu (226 AD), in order to strengthen the rule of Lingnan, Sun Quan of Wu divided Jiaozhou into two, with the western part still called Jiaozhou and the eastern part Guangzhou, from which Guangzhou got its name. Guangzhou is also known as Wuyangcheng, Yangcheng, Suicheng, or Sui for short. This name originated from a mythological story, the legend says that during the Zhou Dynasty, an immortal dressed in five colors rode five immortal sheep with rice ears in their mouths and came down to this place on a colorful cloud to present rice ears to the residents, wishing the place to be free of famine forever, then took off and the five sheep turned into stone, from then on Guangzhou became the most affluent place in Lingnan.
Guangzhou dialect
The Guangzhou dialect is a typical representative of the Cantonese language, but Guangzhou dialect itself is constantly changing and developing. Guangzhou dialect in the broader sense, also known as “Guangfu dialect” and “Baihua”, belongs to the Guangfu piece of the Cantonese dialect, and is the representative dialect of Cantonese, which is spoken in the Pearl River Delta, parts of western and northern Guangdong, and southeastern Guangxi, centered on Guangzhou. The Guangzhou dialect in a narrow sense refers to the Cantonese language spoken in Guangzhou, including the Dongshan accent, Xiguan accent, Xicun accent and Panyu accent. It is the native language of tens of millions of local residents in Guangzhou, Hong Kong and other metropolises, and has long guided the traditional Cantonese opera culture and Cantonese pop culture, and has become so influential that it has been accepted as the accepted standard sound in all Cantonese dialect areas.
Festival Culture in Guangzhou
Guangzhou is a famous city in Southern Guangdong with a very rich folklore and ethnic flavor. In recent years, Guangzhou has been celebrating traditional national festivals such as Spring Festival, New Year’s Day, May Day and National Day, and has carried out eight annual festivals with very Guangzhou characteristics: Spring Festival Flower Market and Lantern Festival during the Spring Festival, Polo Temple Festival in February of the lunar calendar, Dragon Boat Festival (during which there is a grand festival celebration – Dragon Boat Festival), Panyu Lotus Festival Festival, Lychee Festival in Conghua and Zengcheng, Chongyang Festival, China Tourism Arts Festival and Guangdong Fun Festival, Guangzhou Food Festival, etc.
Food Culture in Guangzhou
Guangzhou is famous for its food culture, which has a long history. Guangzhou people are famous for their love of food and their ability to eat, and Guangfu cuisine is also a representative of Cantonese cuisine. In the 1990s, Guangzhou City created a good environment for investment and development, attracting food enterprises from all over the world to Guangzhou. Various famous foreign specialty restaurants have taken root in Guangzhou, operating flavorful dishes, such as Northeastern cuisine, Huaiyang cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Hunan cuisine, Italian restaurants, Spanish restaurants, Japanese restaurants, Korean restaurants, specialty bars and tea houses, and other new restaurants, which have enriched the Guangzhou food market together with Guangzhou cuisine, Hakka cuisine and Chaozhou cuisine, forming a multi-grade and multi-style food culture, adding to the “Food in Guangzhou” has added a new connotation.
Cantonese Opera
Cantonese opera, also known as Guangfu opera and Guangdong opera, is the largest opera genre in Guangdong and the Cantonese dialect of Guangxi. Cantonese opera was formed in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties when the local class absorbed the Kun, Yi, Bang and Huang cadences sung by the foreign class, and in the late Qing dynasties when the Cantonese dialect was changed from the official language to the Cantonese dialect, and absorbed the local wood fish, Nanyin, Long Zhou, Cantonese eulogy and Cantonese folk music. The basic voices of Cantonese opera are bangzi and er reed, as well as gao cavity, kun cavity, Cantonese folk rap, and small miscellaneous tunes. The performance of Cantonese opera is characterized by ruggedness and simplicity, with stunts such as single-legged, sliding rope, eye movement, small jump, and waist bending. The martial arts are based on the martial arts of the Southern School, including target, hand bridge, Shaolin fist, and the difficult chair and high stage kung fu. In 2006, it was selected as the first batch of National Intangible Cultural Heritage List.
