Dietfurt Chinese Carnival

The Dietfurt Chinese Carnival is a nationally known carnival in Dietfurt an der Altmühl in Bavaria .

Chinese carnival

procedure

Every nonsensical Thursday , the city turns into the province of "Bavarian China". An emperor is crowned, since 2016 Emperor FU-GAO-DI, who then takes control of the city until Shrove Tuesday. The mayor of the place is "demoted" to the imperial grand mandarin (cf. Rathaussturm ).

Already in the morning at 2 o'clock the yellow ants (a group of musicians disguised as clowns) roam the city to wake up the Bavarian Chinese and thus announce the start of the Dietfurt “national holiday”. At "1:61 pm" a large carnival parade begins, which is made up of around 50 groups (wagons, foot groups, music bands). Almost all groups pretend to be members of the Chinese court in some form, for example the Imperial Star German , the Imperial Chinese Steam Bath or the Bavarian-Chinese national football team. Every year the highlight of the parade is the large dragon wagon that carries the emperor's litter. Meanwhile, the population and spectators pay homage to the emperor with the reputation of Kille-Wau .

The procession ends on Rathausplatz, which is called Tiananmen Square at Mardi Gras . There the so-called podium fun begins with the proclamation of the emperor. A colorful stage program takes place here, partly accompanied by music, after which the emperor, court and population sing the Dietfurt carnival anthem together . After that, the carnival party continues in the local restaurants and discos.

subjects

The Chinese Carnival has a certain theme every year, on which the parade and the podium fun are based. In 2006 the Kaiser was on the bridal lookout under the motto Tsching Tschang Tschei - Unser Kaiser sucht a Wei ' (in standard German : Our Kaiser seeks a woman), the year 2007 was all about sport: Bavarian-China crazy about sports - even the Kaiser is delighted . The motto for 2008 was Bavarian China, more beautiful than ever - for our Emperor Ko-Houang-Di . Since the emperor Fu-Gao-Di announced his resignation in 2019 and no successor could be found by the beginning of the 2019/2020 carnival season, the motto for 2020 is Kille Wau and Tscheimitschi Tscheng - who hod to the new emperor g'seng? .

Origin and history

The Chinese carnival has been celebrated in Dietfurt since 1954 and goes back to the term "Chinese", which is sometimes popularly used by the people of Dietfurt . Its origin is unknown: a legend has it that the Dietfurters holed up behind their city walls in the late Middle Ages when the episcopal tax collector came from Eichstätt . He immediately reported to the Bishop of Eichstätt that the Dietfurters were hiding behind their great wall and therefore doing it like the Chinese . In a calendar sheet from the year 1860 the Dietfurters are also referred to as Chinese, in a scientific article in the Eichstätter Pastoralblatt the area around Dietfurt is given as the Chinese Quarter in 1869 .

The emperor Fu-Gao-Di, who resigned at the end of the 2018/2019 season, was the tenth emperor in Dietfurt, before him the emperors Wang-Ton, Sim-Ca-Gie, Ma-Ya-Muck and Ka-We-Son "ruled" , Gu-Ze-Rull, Ma-Ya-Ki, Ma-Ler-Gie, Boo-Dah-Washy and Ko-Houang-Di. Emperor Ka-We-Son even ruled together with an empress, Ria-Ria-Lin-Cia. The names of the emperors mostly result from an allusion to their real life, especially to their name or profession. Kaiser Ma-Ya-Muck's last name, for example, was Maier, while Kaiser Ma-Ler-Gie was a painter by profession.

Probably the best-known Kaiser Dietfurt was Kaiser Boo-Dah-Washy, who was called Hans Geyer in real life and was a local hairdresser. His name was derived from the Bavarian term Boda for hairdresser and the associated activity of (hair) washing. For 25 years, from 1975 until his death in 1999, he was the leader of the Dietfurt carnival. After his death there was not automatically a new emperor for the first time at the Chinese Carnival in 2000, instead the move took place without him. Only during the subsequent podium fun did his successor Ko-Houang-Di slip out of a golden egg.

National awareness

The Dietfurt Chinese Carnival is unique in Germany and one of the most famous carnival events in Bavaria. Up to 20,000 visitors come to Dietfurt every year to watch the spectacle. Representatives from China also paid Dietfurt a number of visits; In 2007, for example, the Chinese Consul General from Munich was a guest.

criticism

The Chinese carnival was criticized for cultural appropriation and for being racist . In particular, the so-called yellowfacing is an ethnically stereotypical representation of people of Asian origin.

Web links

Chinese Carnival - Official Website
www.chinesenfasching.info - private website

Individual evidence

↑ Elisabeth Nöfer: Column is it still going ?: Racism fun in carnival costume . In: The daily newspaper: taz . March 4, 2019, ISSN 0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed June 20, 2019]).
^ Marvin Xin Ku, Felix Dachsel: What I Learned About Racism as the Only Chinese Person at a 'Chinese' Festival. In: Vice. April 1, 2019, accessed June 20, 2019 .

[1] Elisabeth Nöfer: Column is it still going ?: Racism fun in carnival costume . In: The daily newspaper: taz . March 4, 2019, ISSN 0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed June 20, 2019]).

[2] Marvin Xin Ku, Felix Dachsel: What I Learned About Racism as the Only Chinese Person at a 'Chinese' Festival. In: Vice. April 1, 2019, accessed June 20, 2019 .