On day seven of the sixth month in the lunar calendar, around forty participants in the Peikang session of the "Taiwan Folk Culture Field Camp" spent a day at the Wan-shan Temple in Chinhu Village, Yunlin County. They were there to observe the rare ch'ien-shui-ts'ang (pull shuits'ang) ceremony for departed souls.

It so happened that Typhoon Amy was on the way, with threatening clouds in the sky and dust swirling in the air, while 4,000 shui-ts'ang swayed wildly in the wind. It all made for a bleak atmosphere, as if going back in time to 150 years before.

During a typhoon in 1845, coastal villages along the belt of land between Peikang and Huwei streams were wiped out by high seas. Dead were scattered everywhere, and the few survivors had no choice but to perform a collective burial, and establish a temple to help the departed souls cross from purgatory. That was how the custom of the ch'ien-shui-ts'ang ceremony began, which carries on to this day. The drowned souls cling to the shui-ts'ang (a length of bamboo that is spun like a prayer wheel) to pull themselves from the water, and be saved from the bitter sea.

Self-Cultivation Is Up to the Individual: In recent years it has become increasingly popular for research into folk customs to be carried out in situ. During summer vacation this year, the first model "field survey" culture research camp in Taiwan, called "The Taiwan Folk Culture Field Camp," was held by the Taiyuan Publishing Co..

There are no classrooms or teachers at the camp, yet everywhere is the classroom and everyone is a teacher. The participants visit a variety of folk culture events, asking questions, taking notes and collecting data personally. The four-day session at Peikang concentrated on Peikang itself, Chinhu Village, and Hsinkang county and Yuehmei Village in Chiayi. While not exactly living out of doors for four days, the participants did indeed have to get around under their own steam at the events they went to observe. In addition to the session at Peikang, participants in the courses at Chiaohsi, Tainan County, also carried out the same type of "field research."

Because it is a completely new trial method, the organizers reminded registrants for the camp to first do their "homework" and prepare questions.

"If you want to reap you have to sow," says Liu Huan-yueh, editor-in-chief of Taiyuan Publishing. It is a case of "the master can usher you in, but self-cultivation is up to the individual. "

Old and Young Together Under One Roof: What did they see?

After the ch'ien-shui-ts'ang ceremony was over, Li Yu-shan, lecturer in Chinese at Fu Jen Catholic University and the oldest participant at the camp, asked: "What was the point of the water scoop and clogs used at the start of the ceremony?" Originally meant to wash and clad the feet of ancestors pulled from the muddy waters, they are now ceremonial items that demonstrate the consideration that the survivors have for those drowned. Once they understood about the ceremony, some of the camp participants volunteered to help set out the shui-ts'ang and get them spinning (which is meant to help the departed to cling on). Says Chi Su-shan, studying for an M.A. in music at the University of Illinois: "The drowned were from among the early settlers in Taiwan, who are also our forefathers, aren't they?"

"You can understand how this ceremony is profounder than the Chinese ghost festival," responds Huang Wen-po, the leader of the culture camp.

In the evening the participants sat together at round tables for dinner, rather like an extended family gathering with young and old, male and female, and conversation flying about in Mandarin and Hokkien. There were those of grandparent age, and those still at senior high school, while around 70% were college students. There were also a range of professions and of provinces represented at the camp as well as different age groups. "Everyone here grew up on rice from the southern plain of Taiwan," says Lai Hsu-chen, a--Hakka second-year history student at the night school of National Taiwan University. "As well as learning about my own people I want to learn about other people who live on this same piece of land." This summer she took part in two Hakka culture summer camps, as well as this event with its bent towards Fukienese culture.

This year there were five sessions held compared to only one last year, and all places were filled within twenty days of opening for registration. It all goes to show how more and more people are in a hurry to understand the native cultures of this land.

How Much Do You Know About Your Own Land?: When the study camp reached Chinhu it chanced upon Li Feng-mao, professor at the graduate school of Chinese at National Chengchi University and himself a Chinhu native, who had brought his students there to carry out fieldwork. He spoke for many when he said, "After covering many places in Taiwan and mainland China I came to wonder how come I hadn't studied my own native area."

Chen Chien-yi, a first-year student at the graduate school of chemistry of the Tatung Institute of Technology, intends to go to study in America in two year's time, and says, "Before walking on another land I hope to get a much better understanding of my own." During the four days of the camp he could always be seen walking at the head of the group as if time was short. Kuo Chen-ling, a second-year psychology student at National Chengchi University, feels strongly about this too. "Our English teacher once told us about tradition in Lukang, which my mind was an absolute blank about. How can I be more familiar with New York, Paris and Peking than with Lukang, a place which foreigners consider so representative of Taiwanese culture?" This started her interest in Taiwanese folk culture, and she resolved to begin looking into the mediums and other followers at the Hsing-tien Temple with a psychological approach.

"When I was still a student more than ten years ago, people laughed their heads off at you if you listened to Taiwanese opera sung by Liao Chiung-chih rather than listening to Andy Williams, and went to temple festivities rather than going to the cinema," recalls Li Mao-hsien, executive secretary of the Chinese Folk Arts Foundation, comparing present with past.

Today's Fever for Folk: Some came to take part in the culture camp because they felt themselves distanced from the land they grew up in, but others came simply because folk culture is in vogue.

One often heard reasons like this given: "I am over twenty now, and don't want to be at one of those events where everyone plays group games." Or: "I think folk culture is really interesting."

Of late, student societies focusing on folk arts, Taiwanese culture and Taiwan in general have been springing up like mushrooms on college campuses around the island. Traditional open-air opera has moved into auditoriums, while the major newspapers have initiated special folk arts pages (putting journalists of folk culture in big demand), and specialist publishing houses have emerged to supply the market for books on the subject. The rage for folk culture is even evident in department stores and television commercials.

This fever for "folk" stems from the meticulous efforts of a few pioneers.

In 1979, Professor Chiu Kun-liang of the department of drama at Chinese Culture University, had his students join the university's pei-kuan musical society. Having students perform amateur local opera broke down the stereotype of folk arts and opera as lowly entertainment meant only for the old.

Soon after, in 1982, the Theater of Folk was opened, with many academics and students involved. Teachers taking part included Hsu Chang-hui, Chiu kun-liang, Tseng Yung-yi and Chuang Po-ho, while among the students were Chiang Wu-chang, Lin Mao-hsien and Liu Huan-Yueh. Many of the participants at the culture camp first became interested after seeing the works of those predecessors. The gradual transformation of folk arts from "ugly duckling" status to their current popularity, owes much to the efforts of private folk arts groups that have been set up, and the events they have organized.

Putting the Cow Out to Graze?: The popularity of folk culture has led to an increase in the numbers of people interested. The Taiyuan Publishing Co., which specializes in works about folk culture, has a mailing list of twenty thousand customers, among which there are almost a hundred who buy every book it puts out. "But," says Liu Huan-yueh, "while there many who are genuinely interested, we find that the majority who come to folk culture events are just there to see the fun." One of the purposes of the Folk Culture Camp is to give people an opportunity to step inside the event.

The results of this open approach to fieldwork activities is highly varied though. Some people just do whatever the leader does, out of habit, listening but not asking. Some simply sit to one side, saying it is taking too long and they do not know what they are doing. There are however those who ask questions and stay on the ball throughout, thinking as they go.

Leader Huang Wen-po frequently reminds participants to speak up if they have a question: "It is right to ask. Why didn't we hand out information materials to you? So that everyone would keep their eyes and ears open. Asking shows that you have seen and have your own thinking. Only then can you get below the surface of the event and know for yourself what folk culture is about.

During the Peikang session for example, where many temple visits had been arranged, the group was taken to see the restoration work at Shui-hsien Temple in Hsinkang, a grade-two listed monument. Someone asked what the emphasis in the restoration work was, and Lin Yung-tsun, general secretary at the temple, proceeded to explain in detail. The temple is two hundred years old, and when renovation was last carried out in 1949 there was no notion of preservation of old monuments. Durability was the concern, so wooden pillars and brick surfaces were replaced or covered with cement and pebble-chip concrete. The current renovation is designed to repair structural decay, and as far as possible to restore the temple to its traditional, pre-1949 appearance.

The cement cast pillars and floors that were fitted that year will be replaced with carved pillars and six-inch cobblestones in the original style. An exception is the pair of cement cast dragon pillars in front of the entrance, which will not be replaced. Lin Yung-tsun points to pillars, explaining: "Firstly they are well made, and secondly, keeping them helps people to know this little part of history, for the last restoration was not ideal but it was a part of Shui-hsien Temple's history." Also, after seeing building work at Ch'ao-t'ien Temple in Peikang, group members discussed with the director of the temple how temple authorities can handle the current craze for electric organs and gaudy floats at religious events, and asked how temples put the flood of donations to use. Questions that were about real living temple culture, and not just about the construction that they could see in front of them.

Every Generation Has Talented Members: Lin Mao-hsien, who is deeply committed to the cause of folk culture, has even higher hopes for the results that can be achieved. "Folk culture has been popular for ten years. If the people who are interested now just stick to the observation and notetaking stage of ten years ago, then the vogue will eventually die out. He believes that there needs to be still more people getting involved at different levels in research into folk culture. Organizing and adapting the librettos to traditional operas for example, and making improvements to stages and lighting. Naturally, his goal may seem far off to those participants at culture camps whose enthusiasm for folk culture may have only just begun, but of last year's participants, thirty are already counted as regulars by the organizers, and are in occasional contact, so for them it was obviously not just a one-off enthusiasm. The end of the camp was like the end of a march, leaving everyone exhausted. One participant told how a local resident had told him of a grandmother in Peikang who made cloth dolls, and how seven or eight people carrying backpacks, cameras and tape-recorders searched all over until they finally found her. Who knows, but after ten years one of their number might be someone important in the world of folk culture.

[Picture Caption]

Clogs and a water scoop, to wash and dress the feet of bodles pulled from the water, showing the respect that the living had for the dead.

The ch'ien-shui-ts'ang ceremony originated with a sea flood 150 years ago, in which many early settlers perished. It is a rite for the dead with a significance that goes beyond that of the Chinese ghost festival.

Participants reverently sign their names, after learning the purpose of the ch'ien- shui-ts'ang ceremony.

Participants go beyond simply watching the fun, thanks to the teacher's explanations and their own personal inquiries.

Photography and sound recording are basic homework for the field study.

"How much do you know of your own native land?" Participants who are long time city dwellers know little of Taiwanese folk culture, and many cannot even recognize the native water buffalo.

The ch'ien-shui-ts'ang ceremony originated with a sea flood 150 years ago, in which many early settlers perished. It is a rite for the dead with a significance that goes beyond that of the Chinese ghost festival.

Participants reverently sign their names, after learning the purpose of the ch'ien- shui-ts'ang ceremony.

Participants go beyond simply watching the fun, thanks to the teacher's explanations and their own personal inquiries.

Photography and sound recording are basic homework for the field study.

"How much do you know of your own native land?" Participants who are long time city dwellers know little of Taiwanese folk culture, and many cannot even recognize the native water buffalo.