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The Putian people's New Year is solemn and exquisite.
Putian is an immigrant city formed by the southward migration of the Zhongyuan Shi ethnic group in history, one of the gathering places and diffusion places of "Yiguan Nandu, such as the Eight Ethnic Groups of the Min", and the convergence and fusion of the Central Plains culture and the Minyue culture here. Putian, a thousand-year-old city, has continued hundreds of years of traditional customs and accumulated into "ten miles of different winds, one village and one custom". Folk still preserve the New Year's taboos with putian characteristics: Chinese New Year's Eve do not use the knife at night, worried about attracting killing; do not sweep the floor on the morning of the first day of the first month, worry about sweeping away the god of wealth; at the beginning of the first month, relatives and friends do not visit the door, worry about being unlucky, and so on.
Putian, a city with a busy year, a city with a noisy spring. The Spring Festival here is twice a year; the Lantern Festival here is jubilant in January.
01
"Thousands of supplements, wash and see the ancestors" "Sweep the four sides of the light, wash and see the grandfather".
As soon as they enter the lunar month, the virtuous housewives of Putian will choose a sunny lunar "double day" to carry out a "sweeping tour" (dusting), "double day" is an auspicious number recognized by the Putian people, and it is also an auspicious day. Because of the harmonic sounds of "dust" and "Chen", the New Year sweep patrol has the meaning of "removing Chen Buxin", which means to clean up and sweep out all the poor luck and obscurity.
When I was a child, my mother always had to prepare a special tool for sweeping and patrolling with Putian characteristics a few days in advance. It is usually bundled with straw and reeds or artemisia annua, and a long bamboo pole is inserted at one end to make a long broom for dusting and dusting spider webs. It is said that a small red paper is pasted on this "long broom", and at this time it has the divine power to eliminate obscure disasters and dispel dust and exorcise evil spirits. The mother first cleaned and cleaned the dust, spider webs, etc. attached to the indoor and outdoor walls, beams, roofs, floors, doors and windows, and then moved the indoor steamers, dishes and chopsticks and other kitchen utensils, tables and chairs, beds and other furniture, bedding such as bedding and mosquito nets to the outdoors one by one, washed and then placed in the sun for natural disinfection. When my mother finished these tasks, it was noon, after a simple lunch, she began to thoroughly clean up the garbage and waste, and finally scrubbed the floor tiles of the room. This custom of cleaning up by the whole people is not only healthy, but also pinned on people's desire to break the old and build a new wish and a prayer to resign the old and welcome the new, and the people greet the New Year with a new atmosphere.
In the old days, because the sweeping patrol and the sacrifice of the king of the stove were carried out on the twenty-fourth day of the Waxing Moon, the work could not be opened, so some modern housewives who opened up the door to avoid the hectic phenomenon of the day let themselves choose a certain "double day" of the Waxing Moon, so that they could cleverly avoid the contradiction between work and life. According to the old system, the whole family has to eat a meal of "boiled flour" on the day of the sweeping tour, but modern people are not too rigid in the old system, and the day of the sweeping tour does not have to eat the boiled powder, but on the night of the 24th of the waxing moon, the king must eat a meal of stewed powder.
02
"On the twenty-fourth day of the lunar month, the king of the stove wanted to say something to the heavens. The lees were smeared on the stove and drunk, and the boy gave his daughter to avoid. ”
On the twentieth day of the lunar month, the people of Putian will hold a ceremony to send the god of Vesta. The vesta shrine is usually set on the wall above the stove top, and the shrine is dedicated to the statue or portrait of the king of the stove. People who do not have a stove king shrine directly paste the portrait of the stove king on the wall. Most of the portraits of the King of the Stove are printed with the calendar of that year, and the words "Lord of the Eastern Kitchen", "The God of Supervision in the Human World", "The Head of the Family" and so on are written on them to indicate the status of the God of Vesta. On both sides, there is a small couplet of "Heaven says good things, the netherworld guarantees peace", wishing to bless the peace of the whole family.
Since he returned from Chinese New Year's Eve night last year, he has been staying at home, living with the family, protecting and supervising the family's food, clothing, shelter, behavior, good and evil deeds. On the 24th day of the lunar month, when the Emperor of the Stove wanted to go to heaven to report to the Jade Emperor on the good deeds and evil deeds and living conditions of the family, before leaving, the family made various desserts and other sacrifices, and wished the King of the Stove to "say good things to heaven", a ritual known as "sending the stove" or "ci stove". According to the report of the Emperor of the Stove, the Jade Emperor handed over the fate of the family to the Emperor of the Stove in the new year. It can be seen that the report of the stove king has an extremely important stake in this family, so before leaving, he invited the stove king to eat and drink, bribed the stove god, let him get drunk and full of heaven, did not talk about the short and long life of the world, and hoped to give favors to the family when he returned, to ensure the peace of the family.
Stove delivery ceremonies are mostly held at dusk and at night. After the mother arranged the sacrifices in the prescribed order, she left the kitchen and then handed them over to the father to sacrifice. The father offered incense to the king of the stove and offered the fruit of the stove. There are red balls, white balls, hemp balls, oil fruits, inch gold sugar, foot bone sugar, white cross cut, black cross cut, etc., or 8 colors, or 12 colors, and they are sweet and sticky in the mouth. When offering the stove, he also had to melt the sugar melon and spread it on the mouth of the stove king, which was sweet and sticky, so that he could not say bad things in front of the Jade Emperor. At the end of the sacrifice, the father unveiled the statue of the vesta prince who had been posted for a year and burned it together with Gongyin and so on, praying that he would say more good things in front of the Jade Emperor and bless the family with peace and abundant food and clothing. The sacrificial stove fruit is divided and eaten by several children in their own family, as the saying goes: "After eating the sacrificial stove fruit, the foot bones are healthy." Stay until Chinese New Year's Eve night, and then take the stove king home, and paste the newly purchased statue of the stove king on the stove table. Because the netherworld of the stove king must first count the roster, so everyone in this family must go home for the New Year to pray for the good fortune of the stove king to the whole family.
After sending the stove prince, my father immediately made a pot of "boiled flour" with Putian characteristics for the family. In Putian, the custom of eating boiled flour on the twenty-fourth day of the waxing moon has its reasons: in ancient times, people could eat white rice, white noodles, big fish, big meat life that was called rich and noble, like this kind of flour, rice flour, leftovers and other paste boiled on a pot, plus a little sweet potato powder stirred into a paste of boiled flour, only poor families eat this, this is the owner of this family deceived the stove king, meaning that before the stove king went to heaven, the family deliberately pretended to live a very poor life, but also hoped to Chinese New Year's Eve noon, When the Lord of the Stove Nether returns home, he can bring good luck and a good life to the family in the coming year. After the family has eaten the boiled flour at noon, they have to keep a bowl and put it on the stove, commonly known as "every other year's boiled flour", which means that there will be surplus grain to eat next year.
03
The twenty-fifth day of the waxing moon is a big day in Putian, commonly known as the "twenty-fifth day". Legend has it that on the twenty-fourth day of the 24th month of the month, the emperor of the stove with the instructions of the people to the heavens to report to the Jade Emperor on the work of the mortal world, the next day the Jade Emperor will tour the netherworld, the gods of heaven on this day will pay special attention to the good and evil deeds of mortals in the world, so on this day to avoid quarrels, curses, debt collection, disputes with people, etc., everyone should be harmonious, seek advantages and avoid harm, look forward to good luck in the coming year, this day is also a good day to accumulate good deeds and give alms. However, all money and grain that have been made to the gods must be sent to the City God Temple or the Village Palace Temple on their own initiative. On this day, the "Relief and Charity" activity was held in the city god temples to give money and rice to the poor, a move that has been followed for more than 600 years.
The custom of giving charity to the City God Temple dates back to the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, when the imperial court was dark and the Mongol army drove straight in and invaded the south. Xinghua Province suffered from the enemy on its back, and Chen Wenlong, a native of Kuokou Yuhu, was then the governor of Xinghua Province, he rose up to resist the enemy, swore to die to hold Xinghua Province, and was finally captured, but he went on hunger strike and rebelled, martyred for the country, known as "Yue Fei of Fujian", and stood in harmony with Wen Tianxiang. Chen Wenlong's uncle Chen Zhan also poured out his family property, organized a rebel army, commanded Jia Ding, killed the enemy in a street battle, and was tragically split by the Yuan soldiers and martyred.
In the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Taizu, in order to promote the bold loyalty of Chen's uncle and nephew to protect the country and the people, decreed that Chen Wenlong be crowned as the city god of Fuzhou Province, and Chen Zhan was made the city god of Xinghua Province. The belief and custom of Chen Zhan, with "promoting good and stopping evil" as the core, has now become a specific custom in Putian. Every Lantern Festival and Chen Zhan's birthday, the people hold sacrifice activities, flocks to the temple to set up tributes, burn incense and pray, drum music in unison, firecrackers in unison, drama classes, entertaining gods and people, lively and extraordinary.
In the third year of Hongwu (1370), Gai Tianlin, the prefect of Xinghua Province, built the Xinghua Fu City God Temple on Meiyuan East Road, which is one of the most complete preserved ancient city god temples in Fujian Province, and was listed as a provincial key cultural relics protection unit in 2001. In 2010, "Chen Zhan's Faith and Customs" was announced by the Putian Municipal People's Government as the third batch of intangible cultural heritage list of Putian City. Customary activities are mainly composed of temple fairs, orphan sacrifices, relief, mediation and other forms, of which relief is a charitable activity to help poor households, including sending rice, money, medicine and so on.
04
The resignation ceremony of the Putian people is very solemn. On the eve of Chinese New Year's Eve, every household placed an offering table in their courtyard, commonly known as the "Eight Immortals Table". On the front of the offering table hangs an embroidered red tablecloth embroidered with dragons and phoenixes such as "Golden Jade Mantang", and on the table are placed "Ten Tastes", "Six Treasures", "Five Fruits", "Three Sacrifices", "Three Teas", "Three Wines" and other tributes used to worship heaven and earth, gods, ancestors and so on. In order to make the New Year lively and prosperous, Putian people, especially rural households, must make their own "red dough", "sweet potatoes", square cakes, fried shallot cakes, fried tofu, fried pork ribs, lychee meat, fried flat meat, etc., buy candied fruit, desserts, oranges, melon seeds, candy, tobacco, tea, wine and other New Year goods, and every household must slaughter pigs and sheep in advance, kill chickens, ducks, and fish to prepare enough New Year goods.
All the tributes are properly arranged, and when the new year arrives at midnight, the resignation begins. Worship in the order of worshiping heaven and earth, worshiping the god of the door, worshiping Guanyin, and worshiping ancestors. When we were young, we knelt behind our mother with incense, and the mother recited words in her mouth, to the effect of praying for a good year in the coming year. Then the tribute silver, silver paper, paper money, etc. were invited to the open space in front of the courtyard to be incinerated in separate piles, at this time putian City was brilliantly lit, and the sound of firecrackers rose and fell, a painting of "the old age will be new, and it is the Japanese family that blows the old dust." The wine and fruit aroma Chen Si was drunk, and the lamp was burned directly to the imperial city spring. "Lively scene. In recent years, as the people's requirements for environmental standards have increased year by year, the government has begun to carry out gun ban activities in urban areas and suburbs, and the New Year always feels that there is a lack of fireworks and firecrackers to help cheer up.
05
The putian people call the night of the 30th lunar month "30 years" and "doing the year" and the Chinese New Year's Eve night, if the 29th day of the small month is also called, the family sits around a table to eat Chinese New Year's Eve meal, called "the hearth". That night, every household lit a red candle in the hall, stacked a tangerine pagoda of varying heights, and inserted on it a spring flower unique to Putian, commonly known as the paper flower of "three springs", and a bowl of "boiled flour" and a bowl of "alternate year rice" dressed like a cone, and five pairs of red chopsticks were inserted around it.
When I was near the hearth, the family sat around a table, and my father always ordered me to put a firecracker in the courtyard, and then close the door to start the fireplace. After the end of the hearth, open the gate and place another firecracker.
When cooking in the hearth, there are usually ten plates of dishes on the table, the fish cannot cut the tail, and the crab needs ten feet. The dishes on the plate have auspicious meanings, such as: crucian carp, the local common name crucian mother, harmonic "Jibao"; shrimp, harmonic "and", meaning family and qi and wealth; crab, must choose ten feet complete, meaning perfect; oyster, harmonic "live", meaning the peace and security of the family; noodles, usually Putian characteristic brine noodles, because of their thin and long, meaning long life and hundred years old. Other dishes depend on family preferences and financial situation. When I was a child, my mother always raised a few live carps in the large water tank in her kitchen a few days before the New Year, which meant that the family had more than one year and was looking forward to a good future for her children to jump the dragon gate.
Putian people pay attention to family affection, every New Year's Holiday relatives working outside the home are always trying to rush home to reunite with their relatives, if they can't go home for the festival because of things, they must also put a pair of dishes and chopsticks on the table and leave a position.
After the hearth, the elders will give each of the unmarried juniors a share of the old age money. In recent years, with the high-quality development of social economy, many unmarried children who have participated in work or earned money have also pressed their parents and grandparents to pay for their parents. The meaning of the New Year's Money is: the elderly's love for the younger generation and the younger generation's filial respect for the elders, because of the pressure of the year harmonic sound "pressure", it has the meaning of driving away evil spirits and disasters.
Chinese New Year's Eve night, the Putian people have the custom of keeping the age. In ancient times, the elderly kept the age as "retiring the old age", which had the meaning of cherishing time; young people kept the age to prolong the life of their parents. According to the Western Jin Dynasty's "Chronicle of Customs and Soils", on the night of the Chinese New Year's Eve, each phase and gift is called "feeding the year"; the invitation of wine and food is called "other years"; the elders and young people gather to drink, and the blessing is complete, called "dividing the age"; everyone sleeps all night, waiting for the dawn, called "keeping the age".
"One night is two years old, five is two days." The family gathers together, eats Chinese New Year's Eve meal, lights candles or oil lamps, sits around the fire and chats, and waits for the old and new time to keep vigil all night, symbolizing the dispersal of all evil plagues and diseases, and looking forward to the auspicious new year. This custom gradually became popular, and by the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Tang Taizong Li Shimin wrote a poem for "keeping the age": "The cold resigns from the winter snow, and the warmth brings into the spring wind." "To this day, putian people are still accustomed to keeping the new year on the night of Chinese New Year's Eve, and the lights in the halls of every household are lit until dawn. Nowadays, after the people in the city have surrounded the stove in their own homes, they also have to go to the homes of their relatives and friends to wish each other good luck, and then toast a glass of wine, symbolizing the meaning of the same furnace and keeping the new year together, and they seem to be cordial, lively and exuberant.
06
Putian people are accustomed to calling the first to fifth days of the first lunar month "five days old".
On the first day of the first year, when the door is opened in the morning, a firecracker is placed in front of the house. Chinese folk have a saying of "opening the door and firecrackers", that is, at the arrival of the new year, the first thing every household does when it opens its doors is to set off firecrackers and welcome the new with the sound of beeping firecrackers.
After the firecrackers are released, the housewives are busy worshipping the gods and ancestors, usually offering threads, candles, cannons, etc. as tributes. After the worship, the whole family began to eat noodles, named: longevity noodles, Meizhou Island honored as Mazu Ping'an noodles. In the Putian dialect, noodles and "fate" are harmonic sounds, so eating noodles means longevity. Putian people produce slender and flexible noodles, cooking method is first on the bottom of the bowl on the top of the fried kale, filled with boiling water to fish out the noodles, and then poured with brine soup, and then add condiments to the bowl noodles, such as: scrambled egg strips, fried peanut rice, pea clips, fried seaweed, fried tofu and a variety of brine meat, etc., the color and flavor are complete. When I was young, my mother often told me that only when I ate this bowl of longevity noodles in the morning of the first month of the first month, I could really grow up one year older, and only when I grew up did I understand my mother's good intentions.
On the morning of the first day of the first year, every child gets up early, puts on beautiful clothes and new shoes, dresses himself neatly, eats longevity noodles, and goes with the elders to visit relatives and friends to greet each other, say hello to each other, and wish the New Year a prosperous year. During the New Year's greeting, the juniors first pay homage to the elders, wish the elders health and longevity, and the elders give the elders the money prepared in advance.
On the second day of the first month, because of the history of Putian suffering hardships, the taboo of Putian was formed: the second day of the first year did not interact with each other, did not visit each other to visit the New Year, and only those who came on the first day of the first day were not afraid.
On the third day of the first month, the shops along the street "opened the market", and the merchants opened the doors of their own shops on this day and lit a string of firecrackers, which meant that the door was open and the business was prosperous.
On the fourth day of the first month, still continuing to welcome the New Year, a group of boys gathered in the villages and communities, holding the statue of the little bodhisattva in their hands, surrounded by a small gong and drum team organized by several people, walking through the villages and streets to beg for money and grass, which is the custom of "bodhisattva begging grass" in Putian, which usually lasts for one day. At four o'clock in the afternoon, the principal of the palace temple began to hold the "Bodhisattva Return to the Palace" ceremony, during which there was a folk custom of "mother and mother asking for flowers", that is, those newly married women who did not have children or married and did not have children would take incense and worship, ask for flowers from "mother mother", and pray that "mother mother sends children" to fulfill their wishes. At dusk, a large pile of straw begged by the bodhisattva that day was piled up in front of the palace temple, and after a certain ceremony by the principal of the palace temple, the straw was lit, which means "bodhisattva begging grass to warm his feet". When the firewood is burned through, every household uses long iron tongs to compete to clamp the unburned firewood and quickly return home, sending the embers into their own stove hall, commonly known as the "mother of the fire", and suing for the money to roll and the wealth to smoke. In the evening, the family will eat a big Chinese New Year's Eve meal around the stove, and the Putian people call it "doing the big year".
07
Putian people celebrate the New Year twice a year, do it twice, and surround the furnace twice. There are historical reasons why putian people are different for the New Year. According to the "Putian County Chronicle" and "Xianxi Zhi", on the 29th day of the 11th lunar month of the forty-first year of the Ming Jiaqing Dynasty (1562), the people of Putian were immersed in the happy time of preparing for the New Year, when the Wokou suddenly attacked, putian City was attacked by the Wokou, and more than 30,000 people died in the rebellion. Two months later, Qi Jiguang led a large army to defeat the Wokou, and the people returned home on the second day of February to collect the bones of their bereaved relatives and rebuild the burned-out homes. In order to remember this tragic history, the people of Putian used a unique annual custom to let future generations always remember this period of national hatred and family hatred, and chose to retake the Spring Festival and "do the year" on the day when the Qi family army recaptured the city.
Later, the people generally believed that from the night of the 30th day of the 30th day of the 30th month of the lunar calendar to the fourth night of the first month of the lunar calendar and then "do the year", the time dragged on too long, and the agricultural affairs in the second month of the lunar calendar were busy, so it was suggested that the second day of the first two months of February be changed to the fourth day of the first month of the first month of the month to "do the year", and in order to distinguish the difference between the two years, the Putian folk agreement changed the night of the Chinese New Year's Eve to "do the little year", and the fourth night of the first month of the first month of the first month was "to do the big year", so the Spring Festival in Putian was twice a year. At the same time, the second day of the first month of February is agreed as the second day of the first lunar month, as an ominous day for visiting relatives and friends, commonly known as the day of death. Until now, the people of Putian do not visit each other on this day every year, or visit relatives and friends.
The custom of the people of Putian "making a big year" has special historical significance and profound connotation, so since the forty-second year of the Ming Jiaqing Dynasty, the people of All parts of Putian have passed on this custom without exception, and it has been 459 years. This unique annual custom culture expresses the national feelings of the Putian people who love the motherland, love their hometown, love peace, and hate the foreign invaders to the bone.
08
Putian is known as "ten miles of different winds, one village and one custom". The Lantern Festival here is from the sixth day of the first month of the first month to the second day of February, and the villages and villages are noisy lanterns, there are programs every day, and families are on the battlefield, and the activities are rich and colorful, such as climbing the knife ladder, jumping on the fire, setting up a brown car, playing iron flowers, playing iron balls... The Lantern Festival here is jubilant in January, so the first month of the lunar calendar is commonly known as the "Lantern Moon". The fifteenth day of the first lunar month is the first full moon night of the Lunar New Year, and it is also the Lantern Day of the whole country, which is called "Lantern Heart" by the local people.
The Lantern Festival in the Putian area is quite lively. Although the time, content, and form of the Lantern Festival in each village are not completely consistent, they all embody the main tone of "taking God as the mainstay and the gods and the people enjoying together", especially in rural areas. Each village and community celebrates the Lantern Festival around its own village community, which usually lasts for 3 days. In some large villages, in addition to the lantern festivals in various small villages, they must also unite several small villages and communities, and the big villages will organize a joint lantern for the whole village. In the countryside, the Lantern Festival is celebrated, and the gods are generally rewarded with dramas, and the activities of "walking" of people and gods are organized, in addition to various folk activities such as fireworks.
To celebrate the Lantern Festival, married men in all villages and societies are required to take turns to serve as "fushou" (putian people call it "doing heads") according to their age, usually with the first blessing, the second blessing, the third blessing... The main task of Fu Shou is to be responsible for burning incense, cleaning, sacrificing, collecting the robes and costumes of the gods, sacrificial utensils, etc. during the Year, holding the blessing stove in his hand and following the god stove around the world, so that every family can enter the incense and exchange incense for good men and women. When I was a child, I liked to walk with the "Xingdao" greeting team and go to the homes of the fushou to wait for items such as powder, candy, cigarettes and so on.
Some rural areas still retain a traditional folk custom, that is, when the greeting team passes by their doorstep, they will bring out the iron pot for cooking their own rice, put it on the ground, and use a hoe to remove the ash of the pot at the bottom of the pot (the meaning of "剐" in the Puxian dialect). At this time, there were many black iron pots on the village road, and at this time, the sky above the village resounded with "Uh..." Woohoo...", which means to drive away evil spirits and nafu. According to legend, this custom is that at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, a young couple was exiled, and when the Lantern Festival greeting team passed by the door of his sojourn, because they could not afford to buy firecrackers to fire and drive, they had to borrow the sound of the rake pot as a firecracker to show their piety. Year after year, the poor couple's family business became bigger and bigger, and the people became more and more prosperous, and later people attributed this to the sound of the rake pot touching the gods and blessings, so there was a Lantern Rake Pot to greet the gods, which was regarded as an auspicious custom by the locals and widely spread.
Lantern burning "happy candles" and meeting brides is also a lantern custom in some villages. Families in each village community who had married and given birth to boys in the previous year offered gifts to the gods on the night of the Lantern Festival, or lit a pair of giant candles, called "happy candles". In some village communities, all the newlywed daughters-in-law who married the previous year should dress up on the Lantern Night and sit in front of the door of their respective village communities, so that everyone in the village community can come to know the style of the new daughter-in-law, so as not to know the people of the same village in the future.
The second day of the first month of the second month of the lunar calendar is the "Zhonghe Festival" and "Dragon Raising Its Head", and this day is also the "Cephalos" Festival. Each household worships the ancestors of the gods. The store prepares a banquet and invites employees to do the "head teeth". During the period, all those who fail to hold the Lantern Festival as scheduled due to heavy rain and other reasons in the first month must be uniformly supplemented on this day, commonly known as "February 2". After this day, the local people began to be really busy with farming and livelihood.
No matter where I am, I still miss my hometown, miss my village, miss my old house, miss my relatives, miss my memories...
(Source: Putian Writer Author: Liu Qinghua Editor: Xu Yixuan)