Yakou Piaose Float Procession

The Yakou piaose, also called "the scene procession" or "raised colour," is current in Yakou village of Nanlang town in Zhongshan, rooted in the Tang-era rite of "parading the bodhisattva" and gradually shaped into its present form. Every year on the sixth day of the fifth lunar month, the "Dragon King's birthday," the village holds a piaose procession, a key seasonal custom of the area. In 2008 it entered the second national ICH list under the "carried frames" category.

The piaose rests on a "colour cabinet" base from which rises a "colour stem"—a finely cast iron frame—on which a costumed child stands aloft as a historical or mythic figure and is carried in procession; the child appears to float in mid-air, held in fact by the ingenious iron frame and cabinet, with eight-instrument gong-and-drum accompaniment for a dazzling spectacle.

The Yakou piaose unites worship, procession, operatic tableaux, metalwork and eight-instrument accompaniment, carrying the folk belief and clan festival tradition of Zhongshan's coastal villages, an important representative of Lingnan's piaose art.