Beijing is a world-famous cultural ancient city, where the unique cultures of many nationalities permeate and blend with each other to form local folk customs, which are an important part of the history of Chinese folk culture, including temple fairs, seasonal festivals, weddings and funerals, etc., with rich contents.

(1) Beijing quadrangles and hutongs

Beijing quadrangles are the main architectural forms that old Beijingers have lived in for generations and contain profound cultural connotations. Since the official capital of Beijing was established in Yuan Dynasty and the capital was planned and built on a large scale, quadrangles have appeared at the same time as palaces, offices, blocks, lanes and hutongs in Beijing. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the quadrangle in Beijing has experienced many vicissitudes, but this basic living form has been formed and constantly improved, which is more suitable for living requirements and forms the quadrangle form we see today. The quadrangle in Beijing is famous because of its unique composition, which is typical and representative in traditional residential buildings in China. Why is it called "Siheyuan"? Because this kind of residence has four houses, namely the main room (north room), the inverted seat (south seat), the east wing and the west wing, which are surrounded on all sides to form a zigzag shape with a central courtyard inside, this courtyard-style residence is called quadrangle. Beijing quadrangles are regular and typical. Among all kinds of quadrangles, Beijing quadrangles can represent their main characteristics.

Xu Tong is a local feature of Beijing streets. Hutong was formed in Yuan Dynasty, and it began to form with Kublai Khan's founding of Dadu City in Yuan Dynasty. Yuan Metropolitan City was founded in 1267, and its well-planned architectural pattern created hutong. In layman's terms, hutong is the floorboard of Beijing streets and lanes. The reason why it becomes a representative noun lies in its considerable scale and its local characteristics as a group. As the saying goes, "The famous hutong is 36, but the nameless hutong is like a dime a dozen. The hutongs in Beijing have different names, and each name has its own unique origin. Moreover, hutongs are also very different, such as the narrowest hutong-Qianshi Hutong, where the narrowest part in the middle is only 4 cm. Lingjing Hutong, the widest hutong, is 32.18 meters wide, Jiuwan Hutong, the hutong with the most turns

, and the oldest hutong is Brick Pagoda Hutong, which existed in the Yuan Dynasty.

(2) Peking Opera and Crosstalk

Among various art forms, Peking Opera is the most representative of China's traditional culture. The main feature of Beijing opera is often called "comprehensive drama", because the creation of Beijing opera is a complete blend of dance, song, drama, mime, martial arts and poetry. It is a very unique art form, which includes stylized and rhythmic movements, concise and accurate music scores, imaginative plots and attractive characters. Singing, rhythm, and melody also change with the differences of the characters' thoughts and feelings. Peking Opera uniquely combines realistic and abstract techniques to create a subtle equation full of dramatic ideas.

Crosstalk originated in Beijing and is popular all over the country. It is generally believed that it was formed during the reign of Xianfeng and Tongzhi in Qing Dynasty. It is a form of folk art that makes the audience laugh by telling jokes or funny questions and answers. It evolved from "Xiang Sheng" in Song Dynasty. In the late Jing era, cross talk formed modern characteristics and styles. Mainly in Beijing dialect, there are also "dialect crosstalk" in local dialects. In the process of the formation of cross talk, we have extensively absorbed the artistic strengths of ventriloquism and storytelling, combined Zhuang with harmony, expressed truth, goodness and beauty with satirical jokes, made people laugh as artistic features, and took "speaking, learning, teasing and singing" as the main artistic means.

Tianqiao Artist

(3) Tianqiao and Temple Fair

Tianqiao area in old Beijing is a cultural, entertainment, catering and commercial concentration area for Beijing civilians, and the life in Tianqiao area in the past is concentrated in the newly-built Tianqiaole Tea Garden today. This tea garden is located at the northwest end of the famous Tiantan Park. It is an antique building.

There is a stage in front of the hall, with black-painted hardwood tables and chairs, and a frontispiece selling various Beijing-style snacks in the hatchback. The waitress in China cheongsam poured tea back and forth. You must also use China's ancient copper coins to pay the bill-you can exchange them with modern money on the spot, which is really a complete old style.

The tea garden program is also a "folk custom series", among which the performance of the "Eight Monsters" of the old Tianqiao is the most worth seeing. These eight monsters can be described as big idols in the eyes of old Beijingers. Their performances are divided into literary and martial arts. The literary works include Sun Baocai and Bi Xuexiang's duet, Hu Yumin and Fu Baoshan's cross talk, Tian Baoshan and other nine people's playing drums, Zhang Shanzeng's "White Sands", Luo Haoran's Latin films, Pan Changlin's classical tricks, Yang Yongxiang's ventriloquism, etc. Martial arts include Zhou Maoxing, Li Baoru and others, such as Zhongfan, wrestling and hard qigong.

The temple fair in Beijing is a folk entertainment activity that integrates eating, drinking and having fun. Because it originated around the temple, it is called "temple"; Seeing that there are many people who burn incense and worship Buddha, small business vendors set up various stalls outside the temple to earn their money, which gradually became a regular activity, so it was called the "meeting".

Temple fairs are mostly held during the Spring Festival, and various folk art performances, rich Beijing snacks and folk handicrafts are the most attractive places. Yangko, stilts, dry boat, lion dance, playing with steel forks, playing with tiger sticks, playing gongs and drums, and even dancing with "Chinese banners", tied a satin red flag on a 7-meter-long bamboo pole with a thick bowl, and it was very thrilling to throw and catch it with your hands, arms, mouth and forehead for a while.