Just see the villagers carrying a piggy bank loaded with "golden pig", neatly placed in the village cultural plaza on the long table, about 250 heads, the scene is spectacular, the aroma is overflowing. Villagers also inserted into the head of each "golden pig" a fruit knife wrapped in red paper, the blade inward, representing the head of luck, everything goes well, year after year. The tail of the "golden pig" is also wrapped in red paper, indicating that there is a head and a tail, always lucky. On the same day, the village also held Cantonese opera, lion dance and other recreational activities.
Zhu Weiguo, vice president of the Guangdong Provincial Folk Culture Research Association and a member of the expert group of Zhanjiang City Intangible Cultural Heritage Center, told reporters that the "Guan Gong Knife Grinding Festival", also known as "Guan Gong Knife Grinding Day", is a traditional Chinese folk festival, and the people around the world have set up an altar to pay homage to Guan Gong, in order to commemorate his loyalty, courage, benevolence and righteousness. To commemorate his loyalty, courage and benevolence to promote the virtues of the Chinese nation, and pray for national prosperity and people's peace, the wind and rain. Dongan Village, "Guan Gong Knife Festival" is a long history and rich in characteristics, to burn pigs to worship the festival, was recently selected into the Zhanjiang City, the third batch of "non-heritage" project list.
According to local elders, the village has a history of 800 years, the village population of nearly 5,000, the villagers have been mainly farming and fishing. Every year on the day of the "Guan Gong Knife Sharpening Festival", every household in the village will burn a pig to pay homage to the festival, and all the villagers who go out to work to earn a living will come back, plus relatives and friends come and go, and the village is full of joy and bustle. After the worship, the villagers will cut the meat on the spot, raise a cup of dinner, and give the roasted meat to friends and relatives to share.
Legend has it that during the reign of Emperor Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty, the evil dragon of the South China Sea was a monster, causing harm to southern Fujian. Emperor Zhenzong asked for help from Zhang Tianshi, who sent Guan Yu to subdue the demon. The story goes that Guan Yu fought for seven days and subdued the demon. The Emperor was honored with the title of "King of Righteousness and Courage". Later on, many people organized Guan Di temple festivals on this day, praying for Guan Di's manifestation of his spirit to subdue the demons and send down sweet rains. In order to remember this lesson, Guan Gong himself sharpened his sword on the 13th day of the 5th month of every year outside the South Heavenly Gate to demonstrate and send rain.
Dongshang villagers told reporters that every year, "Guan Gong Knife Festival", if it happens to be raining when worshipping, it is an auspicious omen, is "Guan Gong" in the knife grinding, grinding water from the South Heavenly Gates descending to the mortal world, the bigger the better, the better the rain, predicting that the year's light will be! The more the rain, the better, predicting that the year will be favorable.