Genesis

　　Zhuang nationality has more populace among minorities of China, the number is 15,489,630. They mainly reside in zhuang municipality in Guangxi besides Guangdong, Guizhou, Yunnan and Hunan. The zhuang nationality take farming as their main work and they are good at planting paddies.

　　Zhuang nationality has its own language. Their old characters imitate the manners of in Chinese characters creating, and they are a kind of "square zhuang characters" pronounced in consistent with zhuang speech. In 50s of 20th century, according to the requirement of zhuang people, they created a kind of zhuang characters based on phonetic alphabets that accepted by whole nation. Now this kind of characters is still in use.

　　Festival

　　Singing Meet on the Third of the Third lunar Month

　　The Third of the Third Lunar Month and Singing Meet are the traditional festivals for the Zhuang nationality. The festival is also called " the Third of the third Lunar Month", "Singing Meet Festival," "Singing Women Festival".

　　Singing Meet in Zhuang dialect is "Wo Bu Po", or "Double Dragons Field" (Shuang Long Dong), which means that songs are sung in the fields or outside caves.

　　There is the Singing Meet in the daytime or at night. The daytime Singing Meet is held in the wild place while the night Singing Meet is in the village. One has the content of seeking mates and the other is about labour, seasons, asking and answering questions and history. Besides the Third of the Third Lunar Month, other dates are also for Singing Meet, such as Spring Festival, the 8th of the Fourth month mid-first-lunar month, mid-Autumn festival as well as the wedding ceremony, child's being one month old and moving to a new home. If someone has a good singing rival on the way to a fair, there will be an improvised singing meet.

　　The legends on Singing Meet are of a great variety: one is about Sister Liu San's creating folk songs which the folks strive for singing so that the singing meet is formed. Another legend is that the singing meet is to make gods happy insgroupsto get rid of disasters and plagues; or to memorize faithful lovers.

　　Before the Singing Meet, people will get ready five colour rice and eggs. Girls will make embroidered silk balls in a hurry. At the festival, lads and lasses wear festival costumes. Lads carry gifts while lasses bring their embroidered silk balls with them. Some of the folks will carry sister Liu San's statue around the singing fair and begin to singing antiphoral style; some lasses will make a colourful embroidered shed and begin to sing in sutiphoual style when lads come.

　　Lasses will probe lads' character and talent while singing. In this singing group, lads and lasses will stand opposite, among whom, a lass will throw a silk ball to the lad she takes a fancy to. If the lad likes her, he will tie a gift to the silk ball and throw it back to her. At some singing meets, there is a custom of touching an egg: a young man will use a coloured egg to knock the egg in a girl's hand; if the girl loves him, she will let him touch the egg in her hand.

　　Sometimes village A will send a silk ball to Village B and invite it to a song competition. If Village B loses in the competition, the embroidered silk ball will not be sent back and there will be another competition the following year until Village B Wins.

　　Now the government of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has decided that the third of the third Lunar mouth is Zhuang nationality singing festival, which nowadays has developed to be a culture and art festival.

　　Ox Soul Festival

　　Ox Soul Festival is on the 8th of the fourth lunar month. It is also called Removing Yoke Festival, which is popular in Zhuang area, Longsheng county and northern Guangxi.

　　It is said that this day is the birthday of the King of Oxen, so oxen are relieved of yokes and their bodies are washed and put out to pasture full of water and grass. Ox fence must be cleaned and covered by dry rice stalks. It is forbidden to work and whip oxen. People must sing folksongs and feed oxen on steamed black rice.

　　Long ago, villagers have built a temple for Ox King and would kill a pig as sacrifice and had dinner in the temple in the festival. The story goes that originally there were only rocks and sand on the land. The Ox King was sent the earth to plant a handful of grass seeds in the interval at three steps. However, Ox King forgot the interval, therefore he sowed the seeds at every step which made the card full of grasses, which even spreadsintosthe grain fields. God was so angry that he punished Ox King by forcing him to eat up wild grasses in the world. However, God didn't forget Ox King’s birthday on which he send a Deity to bless him and his offspring to eliminate illness and disasters for them. Thus the temple for Ox King was also set up by Zhuang people to celebrate Ox Soul Festival to show their care for farm cattle and expectation for good harvests.

　　Arts and Crafts

　　Magnificent zhuang Brocade

　　Zhuang brocade is a kind of magnificent artware of Zhuang nationality which is as famous as Xiang brocade and Shu brocade, and it resounds through China and foreign countries.

　　It is said that the zhuang brocade is a zhuang girl named Danimei in Song Dynasty(960-1279 AD), she was inspired with an new idea when she saw the dew on the cobweb scintillate in the sun. She wove the zhuang brocade subtly using multicolored silk threads as latitude and fine yarn of native color as longitude. Then the magnificent zhuang brocade camesintosbeing. To weave zhuang brocade is a craft that a zhuang woman must learn and zhuang brocade becomes a kind of decorations in the common life of zhuang people.

　　King of Timbal

　　Timbal is a bright pearl of our archaic bronze culture. Timbal has 4 parts, such as face, lumber, thoracic and foot. There have been 500 timbals found and collected in Guangxi up to now. One of them has a diameter of 165 cm, a height of 67.5 cm and a weight of 300 kg. The extremities will not get out of the timbal brim even a medium-statured man spreads on it, so it is called "King of Timbal".

　　Timbal was a symbol to transmit information of commands in ancient days, and it represented power and fortune. Folks will dance and sing accompanied by timbal on happy festivals. The timbal is used in the religious ceremony of ancestor worship to impetrate peaceful life and rich food.

　　Fresco on Mount Huashan

　　There are more than 60 famous artistic frescos made by ancient zhuang people on the cliffs of mountains along Zuojiang river and Mingjiang river in Guangxi. There are more than 1770 figures about characters, animals and utensils, and they show a red color. Because the frescos on Mount Huashan of Ningming county were found firstly and they are more and bigger than all the others, these frescos are called "Frescos on Mount Huashan" generally. Mount Huashan, named Balai mountain also, is situated on the east bank of Mingjiang river which is 25 km to the north of Ningming city. The frescos are engraved on the cliffs which facing the river. The frescos are 40 meters high and 170 meters wide. The images are still vivid evenshavingsundergoing such a long time of hardships and they fully exhibit the wisdom and talent of ancient zhuang people.

　　The characters are different in size, they are big, medium or small. The biggest character stands on the back of a horse (or a beast) adorned with falchion, just like a leader. The others have nothing on their bodies and face the supreme character. Some of these characters stand with their legs set asunder and arms spread out horizontally; some stand sideways with their arms extended forwards, or with their hands raised upwards and legs bent down a little. The lifelike character patterns are vivid and rich in expedition, carnival, dancing with musical accompaniment and ancestor worship.

　　It is said by textual research that the frescos on Mount Huashan are mementos of zhuang predecessors in the Spring and Autumn Period(770BC--256 BC). These frescos are rare in China and foreign countries because of their wide distribution, steep site and great picture. These frescos have a deep influence on the international art history.

　　Architecture

　　Dry Fence

　　Dry Fence is also called Wooden Cabin or Suspended Cabin, some of which are found in Zhuang, Dong, Yao, Miao and Han nationalities areas.

　　The cabin has two storeys. The upper one, with two to five rooms, is a dwelling place for human beings and the lower part has wooden pillars with bamboo sheets and wooden boards as walls, which is used as stable or storage for farm tools, firewoods and the jumble. Some cabins have attics and some other subsidiary structure.

　　Most of the wooden cabins are near a hill or a river, facing the fields andshavingsgood lighting. One stockaded village has asgroupsof wooden cabins, looking magnificent. In some Villages, the cabins are well-connected like a big home.

　　　The interiors of the cabins are varied for each nationality. In Longji village, Longsheng County, the cabins for the Zhuang nationality have a shrine as the center, behind which is the bedroom for the father-in-law. On the left side is a bedroom for mother-in-law, which has a side door leading to father-in-law's bedroom. The housewife lives in the right room while the husband's bedroom is on the right of the sitting-room. The room for the guest is on the left in the front and girls' bedrooms are on the right near the stairs so that it is convenient for them to make contact with lads outside. The arrangement of rooms has the characteristics that the couple are separated in different rooms. Now the wooden cabins have slight changes but its principal arrangement is the same.

　　Dress:

　　Summer Attire for Zhuang Girls

　　Zhuang girls in Longji area, Longsheng county have summer attire which is made of fine cotton cloth, the upper part is white and the lower part is blue. Nowadays the attire is made of tough silk or polyester cloth.

　　The blouse has flat collar and mid-length sleeves. The buttons which are made of cotton plaids and usually in the shape of a butterfly are in the middle of the front. In the middle of the sleeve and the cuff are laces made by fine silk with matched colors and designed with different kinds of patterns. The waist part of the blouse is very wide.

　　The trousers are in blue color, two tubes are wide, decorated by two one-inch-wide laces which are silk embroidered ribbons. Zhuang girls wear this attire with small-flower apron at the waists, square flower scarf on the heads, earings on the ears and silver bracelets on wrists. Walking on the country road, they show their charm and natural inner beauty of harmony.

　　Custom:

　　Wedding

　　The Zhuang people in Longji area, Longsheng County have the custom of carrying a bride on the back, cutting a ladder, tearing a bridge and singing in antiphonal style at wedding.

　　When a bride marries, a man who has parents alive, a son and a daughter or the bride's father will carry her on his back out of the gate. This is called carrying a bride. Being carried, the bride must be barefoot and wears shoes out of the gate, which means her footprint is outside and she will be linked with her husband from now on, and also implies that she is reluctant to go away from home.

　　The bride, accompanied by village girls and a singer, will not sit on a sedan when she gets to her bridegroom's home. Of her dowry are some gifts: a pair of new shoes and a suit of clothes for her husband, an apron respective to mother-in-law and an aunt, a waist belt respective to father-in-law and an uncle.

　　When a bride comes to her bridegroom's home, she has to climb a ladder upstairs and go down a bridge to her bridal chamber. After her climbing up, a young man whose parents are still alive will cut the new bridge and the ladder, which means that the bride's route of retreat is cut off and she will remain in her husband's home forever and give birth to children, bring forth a new home and new career.

　　At night, the bride, the singer and the village lads will sing in antiphonal style. The bride goes home the next day and the bridegroom will go to take her on back to his home. That night the village girls from bride's place and the singer, and the village lads will sing in antiphonal style again for three nights on end. There are tea songs, songs of praise and love songs. Some young men look for loves by the way.

　　Night Wedding

　　Night wedding is a wedding custom in Zhuang area in Northern Guangxi. It is also called "torch wedding". At wedding night, bridegroom will bring with him 20 to 30 lads, carry torches, walk and sing to go to the bride's home. Near the village of the bride's, they will sing in antiphonal style with the girls who are accompanying the bride.

　　Generally, lads will win in singing. Then an eloquent lad will go near the bride's home and be stopped and questioned by the girls, when the lad gives right answers, he is allowed to go inside to meet the bride. On the way, the bride is accompanied by 20 to 30 girls, walking and singing in antiphonal style with the lad who came to meet the bride. With songs and laughs, the bride comes to the bridegroom's home to get married by kneeling before the parents. Then the new couple go to the bridal chamber while other young people continue to sing until daybreak. By the way, someone makes friends and probably there will be some more new couples.

　　Casting Embroidered Silk Ball

　　Casting embroidered silk ball is a traditional sport for the Zhuang young people and a unique way of expressing love.

　　There are different shapes of silk balls: round, square and rhombus. Some silk balls have animal's shape. At the upper end is a colour ribbon with one-yard long silk band, like an ear of grain, is at the lower end. The ball, big or small, heavy or light, are usually not more than half a kilo, is stuffed with husks or cotton seeds.

　　In the game, men and women respectively line up in two rows, a referee at either side. If one side can’t catch the ball case to his or her side, this side has to sing a song as a punishment. When silk ball is used as a keep sake, the way of casting is different.

　　While singing in antiphonal style, a girl will slip a ball to her lover secretly. In return, her lover will give her a handkerchief. The two will go on to sing insgroupsto get to know each other. If a girl takes fancy to a young man, she will cast the silk ball to him and he will give her some gifts in return if he does the same. The silk ball links the two persons and is the first step for them to make contact with and understand each other.

　　Rites and Taboos

　　Animal-killing is forbidden on the lunar First of January in the Zhuang areas.

　　In some areas, the young girls are prohibited from eating beef and dog’s meet.

　　In the first three days (in some areas it is the first seven days) that a new baby was born in a Zhuang family, the strangers are not allowed to entersintosthe baby’s room. It is forbidden to visit a mother with a baby who is less than one month old.

　　When you visit a Zhuang’s bamboo house, you should take off your shoes. If you are taking a farm tool orshavingsa cap on the head, you’d better get them off because that will be treated as impolite.

　　The stove and the kitchen range are divine in Zhuang nationality, so it is a taboo to step on the spider of the stove or the top of the kitchen range.

　　The pregnant woman are forbidden to attend the wedding ceremony especially forbidden to see the bride. When a Zhuang family has a lying-in woman, they will put on a knife or a sleeve tress on the door. The pregnant women are not allowed to visit the family with a lying-in women. If someone enterssintosthis family accidently, he or she has to send a gift (usually a set of clothes and a chick) and give the new born child a name. Besides he or she will be the nominal parent of this new baby.

　　Eating and killing a frog will break a taboo in the Zhuang areas..