Xisong Village

Overview and affiliation

Xisong Village belongs to Taocun Community, Jingqiao Town, Lishui District. The district government's "administrative divisions" page lists the five residents' committees of Jingqiao Town as Taocun, Hangkun, Xinqiao, Fengxiangling and Ruijia, and its seven villagers' committees as Shuishui, Dacun, Zhishan, Yunheshan, Kongjia, Xiantan and Taicun. Xisong Village is a natural village under Taocun Community; it appears neither among the residents' committees nor among the villagers' committees in the district-level list, so the parent of this entry points to Jingqiao Town, in line with how the two existing natural-village entries, Shishanxia and Cangkou, are handled.

The generic term at the Taocun level does not match its actual level: it stands in the residents' committee column of the district list although its name ends with "cun" (village). The government page reproduces this usage, and this entry does not rewrite the generic term, recording only the level as fact.

According to the Nanjing Morning Post of 26 March 2024, Xisong Village under Taocun Community, Jingqiao Town, has more than 280 households and over 800 inhabitants. The figure reflects conditions at the time of the report; this library holds no statistical yearbook or census data to corroborate it.

The home of the Xisong horse-lantern dance

Xisong Village is known in Lishui chiefly for its horse-lantern dance. Annex 2 of the third batch of district-level intangible cultural heritage, the "list of district-level intangible cultural heritage (22 items)", includes an entry for the Xisong horse-lantern dance. In November 2023, the fifth batch of provincial intangible cultural heritage representative projects published by the Jiangsu Provincial People's Government in Su Zheng Fa [2023] No. 100 listed, under part three, traditional dance, "Zhuma (Xisong horse-lantern dance)", number JS-III-6, serial number 29, with Lishui District, Nanjing, as the applying area. The grade of the project, its construction in bamboo and its protecting unit are recorded by the culture site; see the entry on the Xisong horse-lantern dance.

On the years of transmission, the two sources in this library differ and both are of a reporting kind: the Nanjing Morning Post (People's Daily app) states that it "has been handed down for five hundred years", while the Nanjing Morning Post (Jiaohuodian) of 26 March 2024 quotes Cao Guangxing, Party General Secretary of Taocun Community, Jingqiao Town, as saying that the dance began in the Wanli reign of the Ming, flourished in the Qing and has a history of nearly 500 years. Both are approximate figures. They are kept side by side here, are not converted into a definite founding year, and are not used to date the foundation of the village.

The Xisong horse-lantern dance is not the only one in Jingqiao Town. The same report states that more than ten villages in the town perform horse-lantern dances during the Spring Festival, and annex 2 of the district-level list gives the names Yunheshan, Jiutang, Baishiguan, Dacun and Qingxu horse-lantern dances, so the tradition is current in several villages of the district and Xisong is one of them.

The Xisong horse-lantern dance in the heritage exhibition hall

In 2023, with support from the central special lottery public welfare fund, Jingqiao Town built an intangible cultural heritage exhibition hall at Shishanxia Village, displaying together the Jingqiao Yuhua tea, the Xisong horse-lantern dance, Shishanxia special rice cakes and maltose, together with interactive experiences and a children's workshop.

Two points must be kept apart. First, the report lists the four names together as "national, provincial, municipal and district-level intangible cultural heritage crafts" without specifying a grade for each, so the grade of the Xisong horse-lantern dance follows the provincial published document and is not judged from that report. Second, the hall stands at Shishanxia Village, not at Xisong Village; this entry records the distinction and does not treat the hall as a facility of Xisong Village.

Points of doubt

• The origin of the name "Xisong" is not recorded in the sources used here and awaits a source.
• The date of foundation and the village history are not recorded; the years of transmission of the horse-lantern dance are a figure for the project and cannot serve as the date of the village's foundation.
• The affiliation of Xisong Village to Taocun Community rests on two indirect corroborations: the wording of the Nanjing Morning Post of March 2024, and the level of Taocun as a residents' committee in the district administrative divisions page. This library holds no original list of villages from the civil affairs or statistical authorities.
• The household and population figures are as of the time of the March 2024 report; there is no second source to corroborate them, and no statement of the statistical basis.
• "Five hundred years" and "nearly 500 years" stand side by side, both approximate figures from reports or oral account; the date "began in the Wanli reign of the Ming" is likewise an oral statement without official corroboration.
• The protecting unit and the representative inheritor of the Xisong horse-lantern dance in this village have not been traced in the sources used here and await a source.