The contents of the temple fair include lion dance, traditional national flower show, modern dance, Beijing folk character modeling, traditional commercial "cover" exhibition, old Beijing photo exhibition, folk handicraft exhibition, special book fair, Beijing opera, martial arts and acrobatics. Temple fair integrates tourism, leisure and entertainment, shopping and catering, and has distinctive traditional ethnic characteristics.

At the temple fair, there are many folk activities, such as touching the stone monkey, playing with money at Wofeng Bridge and so on. Below the arc-shaped stone carving in Baiyunguan Temple, there is a relief of a stone monkey. People think that touching the stone monkey can eliminate illness and prolong life, so they compete to touch it. There is a big copper coin hanging in the bridge opening under the Wofeng Bridge. There is a small copper bell in the hole of the copper coin, with the words "The bell rings for good fortune" written on it. If you can hit the copper bell with the coins in your hand, you will get what you want. These two items are the most lively activities at the temple fair.

as follows:

1. Sacrifice ceremony

The custom of temple fairs is closely related to the religious activities of Buddhist temples and Taoist temples, and it is often necessary to hold sacrifice ceremonies. For example, the "line image" activity. "Walking like a statue" is a religious ceremony in which statues of gods and buddhas are mounted on floats and paraded in urban and rural areas, so it is also called "walking around the city" and "patrolling the city". After Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei moved to Luoyang in the ninth year (AD 485), Buddhism was promoted, and the Buddha statue travel conference was held every year on Sakyamuni's birthday. The day before the Buddha's trip, all the temples in Luoyang sent the Buddha to Jingming Temple. For a long time, there were more than a thousand Buddha statues. When traveling, the team was led by lions to ward off evil spirits, and the buildings were covered with banners. Then, there were all kinds of music, juggling and excitement. After the Tang and Song Dynasties, most of the temple fairs' welcoming the gods and going out on patrol were the inheritance and development of the image activities in this period. And gradually extended to Sichuan, Huguang and Xixia. It was only after the Yuan and Ming Dynasties that the trend of images declined, which was rarely recorded.

2. Pray for the children

As soon as the temple fair opened, all directions came to worship, worship the gods and offer incense, and pray to return home. This is an activity around the "temple" and "hui" to worship the gods, which is the theme of traditional temple fairs. Among them, praying for children with witchcraft most typically reflects the core of China traditional culture, which is determined by the nature of China agricultural society. Thousands of years of feudal society, people's living environment has basically not changed, and the reproduction of future generations has become a top priority for thousands of years. Therefore, praying for the son, an ancient form of witchcraft, will be attached to various forms of assembly and displayed. Typical temple fairs in this respect include Renzu Temple Fair in Huaiyang, Henan, Mazu Temple Fair in Tianjin, Shuanglin Temple Fair in Pingyao, Shanxi, Miaofeng Mountain and Baiyunguan Walking Fair in Beijing [4].

The ancestral temple in Huaiyang, which worships Nuwa and Taihao Fuxi, can be said to be the temple fair with the most primitive religion and witchcraft. The ancestral temple in the north of Huaiyang is the legendary place where the skulls of Tai Hao and Fuxi are buried, so it is also called Taihao Mausoleum. Every year, from February 2nd to March 2nd of the lunar calendar, a one-month Renzu Temple Fair is held. Its main activities are to worship ancestors and "tie dolls". Married and childless women should dig out the "children's kiln" symbolizing the door of fertility during the temple fair and buy back some local mud toys "mud dogs" in order to have children as soon as possible. These clay toys made of loess have different shapes of "human-faced monkeys", which are called "ancestor monkeys" by local people, and there are also all kinds of weird and interesting animal toys, such as the monkey with a belly, the monkey head swallow, the two-headed tiger, the cow, the pig, the horse and the sheep. In addition to offering them to ancestors, women also take them home as toys for children.

3. Folk performances

Temple fairs are festival activities related to culture and entertainment, with various folk artists performing for a living.

Among them, there are mainly: Qin opera, shoulder pole opera (namely puppet show), cross talk, double reed, magic (called "magic" in ancient China, commonly known as "magic trick"), counting treasures, playing Chinese banners, yangko, stilts and so on.

4. Folk Toys

The dough sculpture folk temple fair in Beijing Temple Fair has attracted the common people with its special charm. The toy market at the temple fair is the most fancy. In the folk children's toy stalls, there are masks, theatrical wooden figures, cars, knives and spears, and bamboo dragons. There are many kinds of folk toys in the temple fair, which are exquisitely made, and all of them can be called handicrafts.

there are diabolo, flapping, lantern, mane man, sugar blower, sugar painter, sugar sculptor, dough sculpture, nine-ring chain and rattle.

There are many ways to sell toys, such as

rings. The stall owner put some toys on the ground, the valuable ones are far away and the cheap ones are nearby. Customers buy bamboo rings from the stall owner, throw them out at the specified place, and whatever is in the ring belongs to them.

shake the color. Set a wooden tray with a pointer and put some toys in it. Customers spend some money and start the pointer with a button. When the pointer stops running, whatever toy it points to belongs to the customer.

shoot. Set up a cabinet with several small doors, in which toys are respectively installed, and the doors are all equipped with targets. Customers buy cork bullets from stall owners and shoot at targets. If it hits, the door will open automatically, and the toys inside will belong to the customer [4].

For some fixed dates, modern festivals are mostly Spring Festival and Lantern Festival [4].

5. Local product market

The local product market is the main market of temple fair trade.

In the old temple fairs, a ceremony of offering sacrifices to the gods was held before the trade activities were carried out. For example, the Hou Ji Temple Fair in Yongfeng Town, pucheng county, which is held on the sixth day of June every year, uses a court ceremony and is solemn. In the early morning of the meeting, all the local officials and the gentry with status should bathe, change clothes and dress neatly, enter Houji Temple and bow down to the statue of Hou Ji, the agricultural god. Everyone sang "The Chapter of Yongfeng": "Farmers sow the grain first, and it will match the other day. I steamed the people for thousands of years. Agriculture is auspicious, and the wind is full. Day boy, it is appropriate to grow crops in the field. " There are music classes and song classes to cooperate. After the ceremony of offering sacrifices to the gods, trade activities can be freely carried out.

there are many kinds of native products:

farm tools. Most of them are made of wood, such as plows, hoes, shovels, Mu Cha, pole, cart, cart, sickle, hoe and hay cutter. For example, at Huxian Temple Fair, people like to buy "Xiyang Village's' wrong end' (referring to the wooden shovel handle), Nanyang Village's' thin board' (referring to the shovel board) and Dongyang Village's' many eyes' (referring to the bamboo sieve). "

daily necessities. Such as pots, urns, pots, upsetting, bowls, plates, wooden sticks, etc. Among them, iron pots, brooms, white water kitchen knives, walking sticks for retaining dams, casserole in Shangnan, rattan chairs and brown boxes in Nanzheng, and many other products are well received by customers.

poultry and livestock. Such as cattle, horses, mules, donkeys, sheep, pigs, dogs and chickens. In some places, temple fairs are called "mule-horse conferences".

6. Catering market

Temple fairs have obvious recreational nature, and the catering market is particularly developed compared with ordinary fairs.

during the temple fair, restaurants, pubs and teahouses were built temporarily. They generally operate in cloth sheds and mat sheds, and some are located in the open air. It mainly distributes popular foods, such as rice noodles, big knife noodles, mashed noodles, noodles with minced meat, sticky spicy soup, mutton in a basin, mutton steamed buns, steamed dumplings, and so on. Among them, the most popular restaurant for farmers is the restaurant that sells noodle soup, sheep blood and boiled buns with red meat. Once upon a time, in order to save money, farmers usually brought their own dry food. After they entered this restaurant, they broke the dry food into small pieces and processed them by each other. Farmers say that when eating in this kind of museum, "you can eat fried fire without spending much money" ("fried fire" is the Guanzhong dialect, that is, the heat. ) The seller of Huanggui persimmon cakes pays attention to chopping the cakes into pieces on the chopping board, and then uncovering the skin of one piece with tweezers, so that customers can see what stuffing is wrapped (usually soft sugar, walnut kernel, green red silk, Huanggui sauce and rose sauce), so as to attract customers. The seller of oil cakes pays attention to stringing the cakes together with ropes for customers to take away.