Kaimenjie of the Deang people

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"Kaimenjie"(open-door festival) in Dai language call "Chuwa", is one of the main festival for the HinayānaBuddhism. Legend said Buddha went back to The Western Sky for his yearly visit to his mother for 3 days(3 months on earth), with the absent of their teacher, all his monk follower went out to preach in all direction, but in ruthness and careless they trespassed framland and fields, ruined many crops and vegetation just right before harvest. People complainted to Buddha on his return. From then athe Lord confined all the monk from being away from the temple during his visit to his mother in the future. That was the begining of "Guanmenjie" - "Jinwa" which mean closing door ceremony, and monks should stay inside their temple, pray and study, wishing the ordinary has a good harvest season. And people should come and provided provisions every 7 days since the monk were not allow to come out to get alms. and by the end of the 3 months interdiction everyone came to celebrate the released of the monks, more offering being brought to the temple, it was a happy season as the harvest had been done, people had more time to entertain with fun-fair. Until today, in HinayānaBuddhism area people still practised this, every Lunar September start from the 15th till the 23rd, whenever you are in the Dai area you would come across this event one way or another, as on the 15th is the day to open the door, then there will be "Ganbai" kind of temple fair in different village. I was greedy in minority costume, Dai dress couldn't satisfied me much, so I find a Deang village where they also practising this ceremony, and in fact...they actually celebrated it in a rather traditional way. Chudonggua village is about 25km from Mangshi, after got off the bus there still 6km uphill walk from the main road junction to the Deang village. Chudonggua spread out rather wide and seperated into upper and lower village, about 5pm, people came to the center of the Chudonggua where the temple stood, brought along with different kind of offering, fruit, Buddha images, banners, and one of the main item were the bamboo pipe, later they assembly them into a long wishing pole, before decorated with a huge banner and stood it up, women would wash the pole with water from the local source. When drum and gong were ready, accompanied by the explosion of fire cracker, leading by the elephant drumer, and the pavalion cart full of fruit, followed by women with their offering marched around the main temple for 3 rounds. afterward people would gathered inside the temple to pray until late at night before retiring home. Next morning would started early around 6am with people brought more offering to the fully gift-covered temple, the head monk of the village received their offering one after one, when present their offer the man should proclaimed a speech and wishes, then the head monk would answered with some sacred verse and chanting, then ended by chanting prayer from the crowd inside the temple, the sound of chanting inside a temple always overwhelming, a sensational feeling! It was a long procedure with one after one giving their own speech, no until almost noon when everyone was done and the open door ceremony was finished, and the event ended with a banquet meal on the temple courtyard. I like this festival even it was a simple ceremony, there wasn't a bit of commerical, no ordered from outsider, people just did whatever they were supposed to do which they had done every year since long time ago.

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