Walking On Tongji

On the sixteenth day of the first month of lunar year, the Foshan residents will celebrate the custom of "walking over Tongji to celebrate Yuanxiao". This ancient custom has a long history in Foshan. The Foshan people use the festival to express their wihses in this way. 

At the south of Chancheng District, wher the Nanpu Park is located nowadays, there was a river named Tongji River, over which was a bridge called "Tongji Bridge". Nowadays the river is no longer there, but the bridge is still there. At this day each year, crowds of people will walk over the bridge to burn incense, throw vegetable and play windmill.

Foshan people believe that "walking on Tongji will have no worry". In China, for the "Yuanxiao Festival" on the fifteenth day of the first month of lunar year, besides the celebrating acitivties, there are also religious activities, such as "driving illness", which is also called "baking illness" and "dispelling illness". The participants are mostly the women, who walk together along the walls or over the bridge to the subborb to drive the illness. Foshan peoples "Walking On Tongji" custom is estimated to result from this practice on "Yuanxiao Festival". At that time there was no road lamb in Foshan, the residents had to carry lantern for lighting when they walked from Pujun Fair to Tongji Bridge to "Celebrate Yuanxiao".