Ximen, the centipede dance on the community day
Ximen in Chenghua, Chenghai, Shantou: the centipede dance is performed on the community day, and the day is the sixteenth of the second month in a leap year. One thing first — it does not happen every year. In a leap year there is a session; in a common year there is nothing to see.
Three frames taken from the Douyin video “Chenghai Ximen’s hundred-year centipede dance”, posted by @温情Chaoshan in March 2025; not authorised by the author, used only to introduce the technique, and withdrawn if the author asks. The three frames are a 2025 performance in a common year, not the session of the sixteenth of the second month in a leap year, and each caption says so.
1. Leap years only
The community day is by origin a day for the earth god, and its date differs from place to place. Ximen sets it on the sixteenth of the second month of a leap year, which comes round roughly once in four years (and the leap rule has its century exception).
So there is no year-by-year table here: in most years the row would be empty. To find out whether a given year has one, first see whether it is a leap year, then wait for the village notice.
2. What the centipede dance is
The centipede dance is one of the animal dances of Chenghai, bound up with the making of the centipede prop and with the dancers’ footwork. Several people work one long body at once, head, segments and tail in sections, carried along by the step so that it reads as crawling.
That is a description of the type, not a record of the Ximen session itself; the Ximen team, the length of the prop and its repertoire were not established.
The lists: national level. The number, the batch and the year of proclamation were not seen in the original document. For the level, go by the heritage list page.
3. Why it is worth recording
It is one of the few of this section’s twenty-three sessions that is not held by the year: most come round annually, this one every few years. For a reader that is more use than any description of the scene — do not go by the year and come away with nothing.
Getting there: the nearest high-speed station is Shantou, for Ximen in Chenghua, Chenghai; it is held in leap years only, so settle before setting out whether that year has one. In festival time village roads often run one way or are closed at short notice, and a navigation estimate excludes parking and the walk in; a night session often ends after nine, and the way back should be checked against the year’s timetable rather than reasoned from past experience.
4. Where to stand (general, not this session’s rules)
Three points only: stand to either side of the direction the file is moving; do not touch the prop, whose sectional construction does not take pulling; the village roads are narrow, so park outside the village. These three are this site’s suggestions for animal-dance sessions of this kind, not the rules of the organisers of this one.
5. Sources
| Source | Body | Date | What it establishes |
|---|---|---|---|
| List entry and local reporting | No named body | Not seen | national level; the community day falls in leap years |
This entry is second-hand, with no original document to open. The number and batch of the national list entry were not found either.
6. What comes next
In lunar order the session before it is Zhanglin, escorting the fire god on the fourteenth of the second month; also in Chenghai are Guanshan, the great pig contest, Yanzao, dragging the god and Longdu, walking the lanterns.
Elsewhere on the site: the heritage list, yingge (animal and group dance of the same region), Shantou routes.
Back to the Chaoshan procession calendar for all twenty-three sessions.
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Last revised: 4 November 2026