Yellow Emperor Worship Ceremony (Xinzheng)

The Yellow Emperor Worship Ceremony at Xinzheng is a grand folk rite honoring the legendary ancestor Xuanyuan, the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi), held at Xinzheng — by tradition his birthplace. Revered as the founding forebear of Chinese civilization, Huangdi is venerated here in an ancestral rite passed down across generations, carrying the deep Chinese impulse to honor one's origins and roots.

The ceremony unfolds through a set sequence of rites — presenting flower baskets, the cleansing of hands and offering of incense, bows of homage, the solemn reading of the ancestral address, and ritual music and dance — amid ringing bells and drums and a stately honor guard, with Chinese from home and overseas taking part in a grave and dignified atmosphere.

The Xinzheng ceremony is a national-level item of intangible cultural heritage in the folklore category. Using ancestral worship as a bond, it gathers a sense of shared identity and serves as an important vehicle for Chinese people to seek their roots and pass on the lifeblood of Chinese culture.

The ceremony centers on the Yellow Emperor's Hometown at Xinzheng and is grandest in its season; on ordinary days a visit to the scenic area still lets you sense, among its ancestral square and halls, the root-seeking culture this rite embodies.