Mid-Autumn Festival folk custom "setting towers" reappears in Fuzhou

On the multi-storey booth, pagodas made of ceramics, rocks or lacquer thread are placed. Under the towers,"clay figurines" are placed in shapes such as "Tang Priest Sutra" and "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea". On the 25th, Fuzhou's folk activity was reproduced-the Mid-Autumn Festival "setting up towers" to attract people to visit.

At the Fuzhou World Hotel, more than 300 pagodas of various shapes form the largest tower group in Fuzhou this year, attracting thousands of citizens to watch it every day. The scenery on the booth is full of brilliance, as if people are in the prosperous silhouette depicted by Xie Mi, a poet of the Song Dynasty, in "Fuzhou Is the Scene":"There are three mountains and thousands of temples in the city, and seven towers and thousands of lights at night."

"Setting towers" was popular during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty. Qi Jiguang went to Fujian to quell the Japanese disaster and won a great victory. His return to Fuzhou coincided with the Mid-Autumn Festival. In order to welcome the triumphant army, the people of Fuzhou took out their valuables from home and placed them at the door to celebrate. Old Fuzhou has many temples and towers, and most of the decorations are models of ancient towers, so it is called "pendulum towers".

Fang Binggui, a Fuzhou folk custom expert, said that it is rare for the "tower setting" activity that has been suspended for many years to resurrect in Fuzhou this year. In the past,"laying towers" symbolized greater blessings and prosperity. Starting from the beginning of August of the lunar calendar, the Mid-Autumn Festival reached its climax. At the end of August, the "clay figurines" will be cleaned up and will be laid next year.

In Xiyingli Community at the foot of Wushan Mountain, residents hold "tower setting" activities outdoors to display various natural landscapes with tiles, stones, etc. In the past, such landscapes were mostly modeled on the scenery of Ao Peak in Fuzhou City, so they were also called "Baiao Mountain".

The children danced around the "Baiao Mountain" and sang nursery rhymes: "The white stone is white and slippery. Bring the white stone to build a white tower. White stones build a white pagoda, white towers build white stones. Build the white stone tower. The white tower is white and slippery."

Fang Binggui said that the "tower setting" created a strong and enthusiastic atmosphere for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Nowadays, many families have begun to resume "tower setting" activities. With the rapid development of modern society and the improvement of people's living standards,"tower setting" should have new concepts and new methods, with materials close to life, and carry forward traditional folk customs.