Ying Hui — Taoist Deity Procession in Chinese Folk Festival 迎会
Paul PengYing Hui (迎会) is the ancient Chinese folk ritual of welcoming deities through community processions during seasonal temple festivals. The deity’s image is carried through the streets in a decorated palanquin to inspect the territory, receive offerings from residents, and bestow blessings upon the community. In the Zhengyi tradition, the Ying Hui procession is a living expression of the covenant between the divine and the human — the god walks among the people, and the people open their doors to receive the god.
Ying Hui (迎会, Yíng Huì, lit. “Greeting Assembly”) is an ancient Chinese folk ritual practice in which communities formally welcome deities during seasonal temple festivals (sai hui, 赛会). The term specifically denotes the processional element of these festivals, during which the deity’s image is carried through the streets in a decorated palanquin to inspect the community, receive offerings, and bestow blessings upon residents. The Ying Hui is the ritual moment when the deity leaves the temple and enters the living world of the community — a movement from the sacred enclosure into the inhabited territory that defines the deity’s spiritual jurisdiction.
Ying Hui is recorded as a folk ritual practice in the Encyclopedia of Taoism (道教大辖典) compiled by Chen Yaoting (陈耀庲). The practice is closely associated with the broader tradition of sai hui (赛会, “competitive assemblies”) — community-organized religious festivals held during the spring season, particularly around the Qingming and Hanshi Cold Food Festival period. The Zhouli (周礼, “Rites of Zhou”), in its “Chun Guan: Da Zong Bo” (春官·大宗伯) section, describes the official’s role in managing state-approved sacrifices that later evolved into folk practices like the Ying Hui. The Liji (礼记, “Book of Rites”) also discusses community sacrifice (she ji, 社秘) which shares with Ying Hui the principle of territorial deities engaging with their communities through ritual.
In the Zhengyi tradition, the Ying Hui processional practice is integrated into the broader liturgical system through the annual temple festivals conducted at Longhu Mountain and affiliated Zhengyi temples. The deity inspection circuit (xun jing) mirrors the Zhengyi concept of ritual territory — the defined geographical area under a Taoist temple’s spiritual jurisdiction where the resident deity exercises protective authority over the community. Unlike purely contemplative traditions, the Zhengyi school preserves the full public ritual of deity procession as a visible manifestation of the covenant between the divine and the human community.
The Zhengyi priest, as a ritual specialist, plays a key role in preparing the talismans and invocations that accompany the procession. The Taoist ritual process that frames the Ying Hui — from the opening purification through the deity invocation to the closing seals — follows the same liturgical structure as major Zhengyi jiao ceremonies, adapted to the community festival context.
