Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Li Huankun Tan Zheng
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Audio/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Tan Zheng
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On January 7, the "Cloud Flower Market" in Baiyun District, Guangzhou City, officially opened its market; on January 11, the 2022 online flower market in Panyu District was launched... This year's Guangzhou Flower Market has slowly begun. Just as the so-called "walking through the flower street before the New Year", every year on the eve of the Spring Festival, Guangzhou has the folk custom of shopping in the flower street, appreciating the New Year flowers, and buying the New Year flowers. Looking at the past and the present, where does the "Xinghua Street" annual custom come from? Where is the earliest Chinese New Year's Eve Flower Street in Guangzhou? This issue of "Cantonese Talks about The Ancient World" takes you to understand.
Guangzhou Flower Market in 1954
When can the flower market in Guangzhou be traced back to? According to records, as early as the Western Han Dynasty, Lu Jia, as a debater who followed Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao, to fight the world, twice sent envoys to the South Yue Kingdom. When he arrived at the place where the South Yue ruled at that time (in present-day Guangzhou), it was already a place where a hundred flowers grew. Moreover, the frangipani flowers and jasmine flowers with special aromatic smells from the western region were transplanted, and at that time, Guangzhou women already knew how to use "colored threads to penetrate the flower heart, thinking that it was jewelry". Because people love flowers and plant flowers, there is a market dedicated to buying and selling flowers, called the "flower market".
Where do the flowers in Guangzhou come from? On the one hand, with the gradual rise of the ancient Maritime Silk Road, a large number of exotic flowers crossed the sea to Guangzhou. The Tang Dynasty poet Zhang Yuan wrote in "Sending The Judge to Guangzhou to Join the Army" that "the sea flowers and wild grasses are in the winter, and there is no home in the garden." ”
On the other hand, Guangzhou has formed a flower planting industry since the Han Dynasty, and there are flower fields in the four suburbs to supply flowers. At that time, in Henan (now Haizhu District), there was a village of Zhuangtou that planted frangipani flowers. The Qing Dynasty's "Guangdong Tushu" records: "There is a Zhuangtou Flower Market in Henan Fort, which is the former site of the Southern Han Dynasty Flower Field. In addition, the flower land in Fangcun began in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and also planted flowers in a large area, and there were many people who supported their families by planting flowers in the eastern suburbs of Guangzhou. Qu Dajun, a scholar of the Qing Dynasty, said: "From Xiaokeng and Huocun to Luogang, for thirty or forty miles, most of them are engaged in flowers and fruits. ”
With the advantage of time and place, flowers penetrate into all aspects of guangzhou people's lives and create good conditions for the formation of flower markets. It is understood that at the beginning, the flower market was opened all year round. In addition to selling flowers in front of the door of the flower growers, the seven city gates of Guangzhou Fucheng in the Ming Dynasty, namely the East Gate, the Little North Gate, the Great North Gate, the West Gate, the Guide Gate, the Great South Gate, and the Dinghai Gate, all had regular flower markets.
Guangzhou's Chinese New Year's Eve Flower Street dates back at least to the Qing Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty "YueYou Xiaozhi" has a record: "Every year at dusk, the bottom of the double doors in Guangzhou sells hanging bell flowers and daffodils into a market, such as clouds like Xia, everyone small households, sell a few seats, to entertain the years." "Where's the bottom of the double door?" In fact, it is a section of today's Beijing Road. At that time, the Chinese New Year's Eve Flower Street at the bottom of the double door opened from the 24th of the year to the Chinese New Year's Eve, and it opened for six days. The main street at the bottom of the double door sells hanging bells and peach blossoms, and the main street sells daffodils.
Speaking of the bottom of the double door, I don't know if you have heard the saying "draw a tiger is not an anti-dog"? This saying is related to an interesting story in the double-door flower market. It is said that Chinese New Year's Eve a certain year, the flower street at the bottom of the double door is booming, and many works are hung in front of the painting files. Suddenly, a child said, "Whoops! This cat is so big, my father bought it for me to play..." The voice did not fall, the surrounding crowd was already laughing, and the owner of the file who was drawing with strokes was even more face like pig liver. Originally, the child pointed to the painting and the title was "Tiger", but because the tiger in the picture had no momentum, and the grass under his feet was painted like a roof ridge, the child thought that the painting was a cat on the tile surface, and he wanted to buy a cat. The stall owner felt that there was no place for himself, and immediately closed the file and left. As a result, a post-break phrase circulated in the wells of Guangzhou: selling cats at the bottom of the double door - losing fake (shame), which means similar to "drawing a tiger is not an anti-dog".
For hundreds of years, on the eve of the Spring Festival, "Xinghua Street" has become an indispensable annual custom for Guangzhou people. As the times progressed, this tradition became more fixed and standardized. In 2021, the annual custom of "Spring Festival (Xinghua Street)" was included in the list of national intangible cultural heritage. Today, it is the largest folk activity on the eve of the Spring Festival in Guangfu area.