"Life is infinite from generation to generation, and the two kinds of daily life reach ancient and modern times. Through the smoke and dust of history, we can observe and appreciate the daily life of the ancients and the daily life of life. Looking at change is also looking at the unchanged, whether it is changing or not, it will eventually fall on the specific individual. The life story of ordinary individuals is insignificant in traditional historiography, but it is the chapter that is most likely to touch the heartstrings of ordinary readers. Without Him, it is only because today we are experiencing the same struggle of love. This matter is the same in ancient times. ”
This is a passage from the preface to "Fireworks on Earth".
"Life is infinite from generation to generation", it is these daily lives that live endlessly in the long river of history, and it is the ordinary people living in the rushing torrent of time that constitute an extremely vivid and vital picture in history.
We are accustomed to looking at dynastic Chinese history, and pay little attention to the daily life and life of ordinary people, but every change in history will eventually fall on specific individuals, and the fate of individuals should be another indispensable Chinese history.
The daily life and life buried in history are equally meaningful to the ancients and to us today.
Human fireworks Buried in history of daily life and life Peking University professor Zhao Dongmei new work ¥73.5 purchase
The book "Fireworks in the World" is Professor Zhao Dongmei, an expert in song history at Peking University, who thoroughly interprets and takes care of the fate of individuals in ancient history from the microscopic perspective of the ancients, such as food, clothing, shelter, walking, sitting, and lying down.
In Chinese history, there is a very important change in diet is the change in the structure of staple foods.
Among the staple foods of the north, in fact, the two important food crops that were successfully tamed by the Chinese, the northern millet is millet, the southern rice is rice, the south has always eaten rice without problems, and the north originally ate millet, and later became noodles.
The staple food structure of the north has undergone a change from millet-based to wheat-based pasta, and this change has gone through a long historical period.
"Human Fireworks" mentions:
In the Song Dynasty, the Chinese food culture has initially matured, in the Song Dynasty, we can imagine the basic characteristics of the Chinese diet, in addition to the basic preparation of peppers: the technology of frying has been produced; "oil, salt sauce vinegar tea", the taste is complete; the catering industry is prosperous, the restaurant tea shops are lined up one after another, and the southern food shops, the north food shops, and the Sichuan restaurants have different flavors.
The general picture of the food culture of Tokyo in the Northern Song Dynasty is almost indistinguishable from the Chinese diet known to the world today.
The Northern Song Dynasty Tokyo is not only lined with shops, but also has a complete range of layers, which can meet the needs of diners with different economic conditions.
Large hotels and restaurants, also known as "zhengdian", are seventy-two main stores, which are the leaders of Kaifeng's catering industry. They brew their own wine, retail and wholesale, and sell wine and tea, exquisite wine utensils, food, wine, beautiful utensils, and more singing and dancing, which is a good place for "waiters and scholars" to gather and swim.
There are also restaurants under the main store, serving meals and curing hunger, and the food shops are divided into three major genres - sub-tea shops, Sichuan restaurants and southern food shops.
Under the food shops, there are snack bars, such as wonton shops, and there are cake shops that make and sell a variety of steamed and grilled pasta.
In addition, there are various snacks sold at stalls and baskets. Before the palaces and palaces, "there were people who sold mutton, heads, stomachs, loins, white intestines, quails, rabbits, fish, shrimp, ducks, clams, crabs, chowders, and medicinal fruits."
The freedom to wear clothes and hats in traditional times is constrained by two things, the first is actually the level of economic development.
Poor people, most people wear clothes and hats in fact in a state of inability to pay attention, it is only a cover, winter will not freeze him, it is almost the same.
The second is the limitation of the system, in ancient times there was a so-called system of wearing clothes and hats, this system of wearing clothes and hats is called the uniform system, it stipulates what kind of people can wear what, in addition to what kind of occasion you can wear, can not wear casually.
China established a complete system of dressing and hats, probably in the second year of Yongping of the Ming Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, that is, in 59 AD.
Of course, the place where the shu people can actually be regulated is on some important occasions, that is, weddings and funerals, which is the only time ordinary people can get on the center of the stage, they are disciplined.
In the traditional period, people of different ranks had different grades of clothing that could be worn. At the same time, it also has a principle - the upper person can wear the clothes on the lower side, while the lower person cannot be interleaved. It is a low-ranking person, if you wear high-grade clothes, this is trespassing.
In addition to this, clothing also has a symbolic function, which marks "relationships". The most obvious sign of the relationship between the costumes is actually the dance dress and the mourning dress. The mourning garment is marked by the relationship between the living, the mourner and the deceased.
In ancient times, a small number of officials had dormitories provided by the public, but most of them also had to rent at the beginning. The ancients, like us, also believed that renting a house is not a long-term solution, as long as the conditions are available to fight for the old capital, they must also buy a house.
When han yu was 26 years old, his life was very poor, and he wrote letters to cry poverty.
In order to make money, he entered the festival to work in the shogunate, and his income increased greatly. In addition to the growing Feng Lu, he also wrote inscriptions and zhiwen for people part-time, earning a generous fee.
At the age of 49, he finally bought a house in the capital Chang'an. The house has a large courtyard in the middle hall and a vegetable field outside the south pavilion. Han Yu was particularly satisfied, and regarded this house as the greatest achievement of his 30 years of hard work.
He also wrote a poem to express his inner pride and joy to his children: "When I first came to Beijing, I stopped carrying a bunch of books. Thirty years of hard work to have this house. ”
In ancient times, the great writers who were officials struggled for 30 years to buy a suite in the capital, and it was not easy to think about it.
We focus on the trajectory of human life and invest in understanding and compassion for ancient people who also struggled between ideal and reality.
In any era, when a new life is born, parents and other relatives will pray for their children - not to seek great wealth and nobility, but to wish for peace and smoothness, "peace and smoothness" is to hope that children can live an ordinary and simple life.
However, a simple "safe and smooth" contains a wide range of things.
First of all, the gender is different, the content of peace and smoothness is different, in the traditional era, gender restrictions on life are far more than modern.
For example, throughout ancient China, the likelihood of women entering the public sphere was basically zero.
Secondly, the times are different, and the content of peace and smoothness is also different.
For example, before the Song Dynasty, who the father was was more important than what the son had achieved. By the Song Dynasty, it became less important for a man's father to be for his future, and more important was whether he would read or not.
Reading the book well, "Chao Wei Tian Shelang, Twilight Heavenly Son Hall" is not a dream of Huang Liang, this is because of the imperial examination system.
Depending on the social class, the content of peace and smoothness is also different.
During the Wei and Jin dynasties, in addition to the elegance of Wang Xie's sons, the peace and smoothness of Wang Xie's sons also had to bear the responsibility of maintaining the status of the family, and must be able to assume political responsibility at critical moments; and in the same era, the peace and smoothness of a soldier's son was to live in peace, not to die too early in battle.
The salvage of "Fireworks in The World" is such a daily story of the ancients. By exploring the "daily life", we look at how the ancients spent life and tasted life.