In the Song Dynasty, the commodity economy enjoyed booming development and therefore the material and cultural lives of ordinary people were improved to some extent. At the same time, traditional festivals were basically entrenched. Its economy and culture functions also played their prominent role.

The Song-Dynasty festival markets in big cities came into being thanks to the combination of the special customs during festivals and the thriving commodity economy. On the one hand, the festival markets reflected the development levels of agriculture and handicraft industry at the time; on the other, the important role festivals played in people’s lives greatly enhanced the influence of the special markets.

Everyone from government officials to business people had fairly strong market sense. In addition, festival markets at that time were pretty much matured, with distinctive markets in all festivals. And there was a wide array of commodities available on the markets with rather stable structures.

Festival markets are characterized by their short duration, timeliness and periodicity and they are relatively entertaining, diversified and flexible, so the Song-Dynasty festival markets were quite impressive in terms of their scale and influence.

Today, the markets are bursting with all sorts of festival commodities whenever a traditional festival is underway. Maybe you can get a sense of what festival markets were like in ancient times.