#pengchau

[torpublishinggroup]

How to Worship Your Dragon: Julia Vee & Ken Bebelle Advise

Julia Vee & Ken Bebelle wrote a book that’s like female John Wick with dragon magic and it’s called Ebony Gate and guess what! It’s out TODAY. We actually have Julia & Ken with us as special guests for Dragon Week, so check out their scholarly article on rituals of dragon worship, and then check out their high octane urban fantasy full of magic and assassins!

Check it out!

A Brief Description of Rituals to Worship Chinese Dragons by Julia Vee & Ken Bebelle

1. Make Your Annual Pilgrimage to a Local Dragon King and Dragon Mother Temple For Blessings

Dragon King and Dragon Mother temples dot the Asian countryside. If you are in the northern reaches of China, get yourself to the Heilongdawang Temple (literally “Black Dragon Great King”) located in Longwanggou (“Dragon King Valley”) in Shaanxi province where you can njoy six days of festivities.

Modern Chinese scholars note that folkloric traditions and religions are having a revival.1 And why not? Festivities for the Great Black Dragon King include opera, dancers, circus performers, games, fireworks, and of course, gambling. This particular dragon king is more highly regarded than other local dragon kings because of his imperially conferred official title–the Marquis of Efficacious Response (Lingyinghou, 灵应侯).2

The Heilongdawang festival draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, all ready to donate generously to the temple coffers, burn incense, and otherwise eat copious quantities at the food stalls.

Or you can participate in a rain-summoning ceremony. In the drought-prone north, one ritual to summon rain included “casting tiger bones into a pool of water in order to scare dragons into flight, thereby creating rainclouds.”3

If you are in southern China, on the eighth day of the fifth month on the lunar calendar, you can join in with over a hundred thousand pilgrims to visit the Dragon Mother Temple in Guangdong. This temple sits along the Xijiang River and leans against Wulong (Five Dragons) Mountain. The area is known as the Pearl River Delta, and Dragon Mother devotees are spread widely across the West river and into Hong Kong and Macau. The Lung Mo temple on Pengchau island (Hong Kong) is situated on the beach.

The origins of the Dragon Mother reach back longer than the established official story, which goes something like this:

There was a young woman named Wen from Wuzhou. One day while washing clothes in the West River, she found a giant stone. From the stone sprung five lizards, who grew into dragons. She raised them tenderly and when her village had drought, the dragons brought rain. When the river threatened to flood, the dragons were there to divert the floodwaters. When she was quite elderly, the Emperor summoned her to the capital. Her dragon sons prevented the arduous journey (which was by river of course). When she passed away in 211 B.C. her dragon sons were devastated and transformed into five human scholars who held her funeral rites and buried her in Jiangwan.

Later, she was elevated in status to a deity, rising to the heavens as an immortal.

Pilgrims consider this eighth day of the fifth lunar month the Dragon Mother’s birthday and observe time-honored rituals. First, they wash their hands in the Dragon Spring to clean off the worldly dirt. The pilgrims then burn incense and present gifts at the temple. They bow, then kneel on the floor, and pray to the goddess. After this devotion, they light off firecrackers to respectfully invite the Dragon Mother to receive their gifts and fulfill their wishes.4

As one scholar notes, “It is not a coincidence that the pilgrimage to the Dragon Mother Temple falls on the eighth day of the fifth lunar month, as the fifth lunar month was the time when the danger of seasonal flooding of the West River (which is commonly known as “xiliao 西 潦,” literally “west flood”) was the most imminent. The West River therefore was both a lifeline and a constant threat to the local people, who felt a real need to appease the river as well as to express their gratitude to the river goddess on this annual festive occasion.”5

The Dragon Mother and other water goddess (“Shuimu”) traditions go back millennia and it’s not hard to see why. The specter of drought, famine, or flooding was constant. Seafaring populations too, had multiple goddesses they sought blessings from for their safe voyage (Dragon Mother, Sea Goddess Mazu, and the shuimu (“Water Goddess”).

In 1861, John Henry Gray observed a ceremony to the Dragon Mother:

“…On a small temporary altar, which had been erected for the occasion, stood three cups containing Chinese wine. Taking in his hands a live fowl, which he continued to hold until he killed it as a sacrifice, the master proceeded in the first place to perform the Kowtow. He then took the cups from the table, one at a time, and, raising each above his head, poured its contents on the deck as a libation. He next cut the throat of the fowl with a sharp knife, taking care to sprinkle that portion of the deck on which he was standing with the blood of the sacrifice. At this stage of the ceremony several pieces of silver paper were presented to him by one of the crew. These were sprinkled with the blood, and then fastened to the door-posts and lintels of the cabin.”6

It wasn’t just sailors and locals to the West river who observed such pilgrimages and prayer rituals. When there was a drought, even government officials were tasked with conducting prayers to the Dragon King.

2. Failure to Worship the Dragon King, or Worse, Destruction of a Dragon King Temple, Can Lead to Heaven-Sent Disaster!

During the Great Flood of 1931 in Wuhan, one official lamented that the people blamed the flood on the destruction of a Dragon King Temple.7 The Dragon King Temple in Hankou had been demolished in 1930 to make way for a new road, so the timing of the flood was uncanny.

This flood affected 53 million people. The officials of Wuhan had to repent. Several prominent officials of Wuhan participated in rituals designed to placate the Dragon King, including the mayor. They kowtowed to the Dragon King altar, beseeching the deity to spare Wuhan from the flood.

Citizens of the region also blamed officials for outlawing the singing of “spirit operas” traditionally performed to assuage flood dragons.8

To those who worshiped the Dragon King, destroying his temple that sat atop the dyke was clearly a bad idea.

3. Maybe a River Near You Has a Dragon Deity.

Even if a Dragon King or Dragon Mother temple isn’t available, you can still make a pilgrimage to the rivers. At least forty rivers in China are named for dragons including these rivers in Shanghai: Shanghai: Longquangang He 龍泉港河 (Dragon Spring Port River), Bailonggang He 白龍港河 (White Dragon Port River).9

Just be sure to be properly deferential, and perhaps offer a song to the river dragon.

—Julia Vee & Ken Bebelle

We would like to thank Dr. Yasmin Koppen of University Leipzig for her friendship, and generously sharing her expertise and scholarship in East Asian dragons.

Works Cited

Chau, Adam Yuet “Mysterious Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China” (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006) 88.

Fan Lizhu and Chen Na “Resurgence of Indigenous Religion in China” (2013) 11.

Courtney, Chris “The Dragon King and the 1931 Wuhan Flood: Religious Rumors and Environmental Disasters in Republican China” (University of Cambridge, Twentieth-Century China 40.2, May 2015) p. 88.

Tan, Weiyun “Dragon mother temple keeps legend alive for 2 millennia” Shine, Nov. 12, 2021 https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/2111128066/

Poon, Shuk-Wah. "Thriving Under an Anti-Superstition Regime: The Dragon Mother Cult in Yuecheng, Guangdong, During the 1930s." Journal of Chinese Religions 43, no. 1 (2015): 34-58. muse.jhu.edu/article/708611.

Poon, pg 41.

Courtney at p. 83.

Courtney at p. 100.

Zhao, Qiguang Chinese Mythology in the Context of Hydraulic Society Asian Folklore Studies Vol. 48, No. 2 (1989), pp. 231-246.

cindyxiong. “Ancient Bronze Dragons Carving in the Ancient Dragon King Temple along Yangtze River,China. Foreign Text Means King. Stock Photo.” Adobe Stock, stock.adobe.com/images/ancient-bronze-dragons-carving-in-the-ancient-dragon-king-temple-along-yangtze-river-china-foreign-text-means-king/100861913?prev_url=detail. Accessed 6 July 2023.

[bivouacrecording]

Generations : Nelson Hiu

Go to Collection on OpenSea.io

This past summer (2022), I had just moved to Hong Kong and was looking for interesting people to record. My friend Paul Yip who is an experimental musician and sound bath performer, recommended that I get in contact with Nelson Hiu. Upon first glance at Nelson's Instagram, he seemed like an interesting fellow, with moody photographs and short videos of solo performances. So I got in contact with him and set a date to meet.

Nelson lives out in Peng Chau which is a 30 minute ferry ride from the Central Piers in Hong Kong. I love taking boats and ferries. It always reminds me of my first journey to Chongming in Shanghai, the excitement and mystery of what lays on the other side. I had never been there so my imagination and anticipation were running wild. Our first meeting, though brief, was a pleasant one. We met at the Islanders Space (ig @islanders.space) which is a venue that hosts events dedicated to local urban design and exploration in Peng Chau. Nelson was curating a monthly performance series at the venue with musicians whom he knew and respected.

Small Pengchau beach</br>I mentioned I was recording experimental musicians in Hong Kong for an album project and wanted to know if he would be down with participating. He agreed and we decided on a day to record as I left on the next ferry.

Pengchau</br>The day of the recording, I took the morning ferry to explore the island and do some field recordings. Peng Chau is a sleepy island town with most of its inhabitants living around the vicinity of the pier . There were a handful of tourists coming to the island that day to explore but for the most part it was a pretty quiet place. It is not a very big island but I was only able to explore the Eastern side before our meeting. There is never a shortage of ocean and water sounds in Hong Kong. Peng Chau had quiet green areas too. I walked around and got lost, met some dead ends, and was open to new experiences. From sea level, to the top of the mountain I enjoyed every minute of it.

Pengchau

After lunch we met up and went to his apartment to begin recording. It was an informal recording, just using instruments and objects he had on hand: flute, hand drums, box o' stuff, even the strands of beads hanging in the doorway were fair game. I had decided it was to be a dynamic recording using a mono microphone moving around, in and out of the space as he played. I focused on describing the space by affecting the polar pattern: going into corners, pointing at all the surfaces, walking outside on the balcony, and even a detail of the creaking of Nelson's rattan woven chair. This dance lasted about 30 minutes and was a great improvisation. We bid each other farewell and I went back home to rest after a rewarding adventure.

Nelson Hiu performing during recording

In the coming weeks, I had finally found a solution for the Generations project compositions and I just knew this recording would be perfect for it. I put it in and started the process. As it was the first Generation, it was going back and forth on the reels for a few weeks while i ironed out the composition process.

After propagating the audio for a few hours on the reels, I used previous recordings to give it some depth as each re-recording would not be as clear as the original giving a good texture and a sense of time passed.

As the composition process became more established, I decided that I would end the process and collected these 10 recordings you hear now. Upon giving an early recording to Nelson, he was happy to hear how it turned out and agreed to do more recordings for the project. I can't wait!

NFT

It is with great pleasure to announce that the Generations : Nelson Hiu collection will be exclusively sold as an NFT through OpenSea. 

Recently I had been turned on to NFT for audio as a way to distribute my works. I was always frustrated about how Soundcloud reviewed tracks for distribution on streaming music platforms. The gatekeeper of the gatekeeper. I also felt like I was trying to fit in with Bandcamp's traditional album model. 

With Generations, where each recording is unique artwork, this further distanced me from the established framework for releasing music. What appealed to me about NFT was that  I could treat my sounds like one-of-a-kind artworks. They could be unique, like paintings. Each minting yields a unique token that cannot be changed. Also there are options for royalties when the token gets sold and resold which is a great thing for artists. I have control over copyright and the amount of tokens I want to mint and sell. It redefined the meaning of what sound art was to me and made it more tangible. It's time for change.

Stay tuned. Thanks for listening.

[thephotoclub]

[alittlefreaky]

Peng Chau, Hong Kong @ Jan, 2021

[mauchai]

That’s what we call life! Most thankful for the life break. Looking forward to the new start. #thankgodishouldbethankful #outing #pengchau #hiking #lifebreak #beautiful #peaceofmind #blessed #hkig https://www.instagram.com/p/BtQSu9GFU1Q/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=fscsypyqqs5w

[yewwooi]

Living the island life. 🏝 #YWxHK #pengchau (at Peng Chau, Hong Kong) https://www.instagram.com/p/CiO6BAoLZjL/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[sculptingtime]

Spring 2022

[kaleytomato]

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival 🌝 ＊＊＊ ＊＊ ＊ #fixie #fixedgear #hongkongfixedgear #bianchi #superpista #bianchipista #enve #paulcomponents #pengchau #midautumnfestival （在 Peng Chau, Hong Kong）

[alanchiu]

First time visiting this quiet island again since childhood and had the most amazing seafood dinner with an incredible group of new friends #thankful . . . . . #hk #hongkong #pengchau #oldhongkong #pengchauisland #nightstreetphotography #nightphotography (at Peng Chau, Hong Kong) https://www.instagram.com/p/B3-z8EspEUH/?igshid=a9m16q4oj5gs

[tinhoblogger]

飯後一百步 活到九十九 👫 2017.10.08一晚咁多啦😂🤣 #海岸沿いを歩く #坪洲 #pengchau

[ingridchu]

Recent art in print (chapter II) -- more not-so-instant time well spent looking, listening, and learning all about #art #publishing through materials brought back from #Osaka by @4res @zine_coop last weekend in #PengChau (at Peng Chau, Hong Kong) https://www.instagram.com/p/ByY-GUWlo9P/?igshid=wlx2h38km9zr

[arvinlun]

View of Peng Chau. . . . . . . . #pengchau #bluesky #sunnyday #landscape #landscapephotography #photography #photoshoot #photos #photo #hkig #hkiger #hkigers #hongkonger #hongkongers #hongkong #hk #香港景色 #香港街拍 #香港 (at Peng Chau, Hong Kong) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt-A8CQhbmM/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=bv3v7rz48ui

[iamsapiosexualist]

Yeah finally got the multi photo update😃 #new #feature #updated #carfridge #car #fridge #refrigerator #cool #yellow #pengchau #hkig (at 祺森冰室)

[alittlefreaky]

Penh Chau, Hong Kong @ Feb, 2021

[estipienaar]

Peng Chau, Hong Kong

[mauchai]

That’s we call life! Most thankful for the life break. Looking forward to the new start. #thankgodishouldbethankful #outing #pengchau #hiking #lifebreak #beautiful #peaceofmind #blessed #hkig https://www.instagram.com/p/BtQSVo9lRRK/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1qqhgm6rm7ado