Bag-throwing Festival For Three Countries in Jiangcheng County, Puer

Short Brief of the Festival

  • Chinese Name:江城县中老越三国丢包狂欢节
  • English Name: Bag-throwing Festival For Three Countries in Jiangcheng County, Puer

The Bag-throwing Festival for three countries (China, Laos and Vietnam) will be opened up on the 2nd, 15th and 16th days of the first month of the Lunar Year.

Wo Zai Nuo (young man) and A Mei Nuo (girl) will wear their splendid attires and gather to the bag-throwing field. Each young man is eager to receive the bag thrown by the girl he is in love with. The bag is the carrier of love and misses of each girl and undertakes a special mission when the girl is falling in love, getting engaged and marriage.

Introduction

The predecessor of parcel herein is sachet, which is a body carrying decoration for girls. Girls made this little sachet from various cloth, and inside they will put grass seed, tree seed, grain and spice, seam at the boundary with a thread of silk and spike. Finally they seam a long silk thread at one corner of the sachet for hanging it on the body. When girls pass by your side, you will smell that fragrance from mountains and plains.

With a blend of various ethnic nationalities, the parcels get enriched both in style and connotation. You can see them in diamond, circular, heart shape etc. And they get names as purse, sachet or embroider bag etc. Girls, with their exquisite embroidery craft, weave their love for lovers on the bag, making the parcel a faith token between lovers.

Especially for Yi people who live in Jiangcheng, on the second, fifteenth and sixteenth days of the first lunar month, the unmarried ones in Yi nationality will gather on the parcel-throwing spot. Any of the young guys will be looking for the parcel-throwing, hoping to catch the parcel threw by the girl he likes. And in reverse, any of the girls will be also looking for it, hoping the young guy she likes can catch her parcel.

“First throw for the girl to see the guy, second throw for the guy to see the girl, third throw for the girl to show her choice, fourth throw for the guy to show his choice, fifth throw for the girl to make decision, sixth throw for the guy to make decision, seventh and eighth throws for the two to become a couple, ninth and tenth throws for the two to accompany each other.” Parcels will be threw back and forth, and couples will be made by the parcels’ course.