One
Earlier, as soon as the New Year arrived, the old gentleman in the village was busy, even if the old farmer who did not know the words, he had to ask the gentleman to write a pair of door pairs with good meaning, and Chinese New Year's Eve this day, he used flour to make a paste, and solemnly pasted the Spring League on the gate. This one is written "Sanyang Kaitai; Wugu Fengdeng", and the other one is written with the words "Loyal to the family for a long time; cultivating and reading the succession of the longest generations". Most of the Spring Leagues in a village are written by the old gentleman.
The old man's name is Ding Aoqi, his family is in Zhoutie Chegou Lane Village, when he was the principal of chegu lane national school in the Republic of China, and later as a teacher in Zhou Tie Primary School, writing a good hand, known for his Wei stele. Later, when the old man passed away, the villagers went to the market to buy ready-made couplets to paste.
Such an old gentleman actually has it everywhere, the average gentleman writes some auspicious words according to the old conventions, and the wise gentleman knows what you want in your heart, often can tell the characteristics of the year, a bit of a problem, pointing out the expectations and vision of the family in the new year. The ink-colored fresh couplet was pasted on the mottled wood door, and the red hall was red, and the farmers also had a head this year.
The door is to the left and the right, like a person's eyes, and the eyes are the windows of the soul, conveying a variety of messages. If you look at the couplet on the door of a family, you can see whether the family is a scholar or a farming or business home, you can see what he is looking forward to in his heart, and even you can see how the family's luck is. According to legend, Zheng Banqiao in the Qing Dynasty saw couplets posted on the doors of households in the suburbs, the upper link was written "two three four five", and the lower link was written "six seven eight nine". Zheng Banqiao immediately sent someone to send food and clothing after seeing it. How did he know that his master was short of food and clothing? The door pair revealed the information, missing one less than ten.
I have paid attention to some self-written door pairs in the countryside, such as "Dangui has roots and blessed land; gold has no seed attendance home", "The sunrise repairs the green; autumn comes full of mountains and red", which is neat and tidy, and sees the poetic side of the farmhouse. This kind of self-written door pair is more characteristic than the printed universal body bought in the market. For people with well-written meanings, the door link posting will often attract passers-by to stop and taste.
There was a farmer in the village by the Taihu Lake, who earlier made money by digging wells - helping others dig wells, and then ran supply and marketing factories, and there were several years of booming days, but the good times were not long. One spring festival, he wrote a pair of door pairs: "The toad that falls into the soup wears a red robe; the frog that comes out of the water wears a green jacket." The horizontal batch is "restart".
In the slump, he needed such a couplet to let the scattered spirit take advantage of it.
The following year, during the Spring Festival, I saw that the self-written couplet on his door was: "The breeze is full of land and cannot tolerate me; when will the bright moon shine again?" It turned out that his wife ran away with the young man in the village and lived in a rented house outside, he thought, how desolate and unwilling.
Good door pairs are full of interest, I saw a pair of door pairs on the old street of Zhang Ze in Dingshu Town, the upper link: 癸 dai grass head towards the red sun, the lower link: unitary Tianchun water Zhu Yan. This is a word breaker: Deca Dai Grass Head, Aoi Also. Toward the red sun, sunflower to the sun meaning. The sunflower is linked, indicating that the day is booming. Lower link, unitary spring water, wine word also. On Zhu Yan, drunk and blushing.
The meaning of the up and down link is: the days are red, and the small wine is drunk every day.
Presumably the master is a vivid person, I don't know whether this pair of doors with personality is his own original or borrowed. I saw the padlock on the gate, there was no one in the house, and if the owner was there, I wanted to meet him. I often visit the countryside, and the gatekeeper is also watching the scenery. Every household has a couplet on its door, and when you walk by, you may not necessarily see the owner's face, but if you look at the couplet, you can roughly see the temperament of people.
Two
The surname association in my hometown is also quite distinctive, and there are nearly three hundred surnames in the local area, and there are more than twenty large surnames. The so-called big surname, the population of more than a thousand people, in the past even a big surname. The ancestral hall is built with the big surname, and the ancestral hall will be affixed with the surname couplet. When some people's New Year's Day, the Spring League is posted on the door of the house, and it will also be pasted with a unique surname link. If you see whose couplet is the same as your family, it is to meet a person with the same surname, the same ancestor.
For example, the Zhang Clan Ancestral Hall couplet: "Bow force thousands of junjun east wind strength; long sky ten thousand miles Beidou Ming." The upper and lower sentences are embedded with bows and long words. The bow and length are Zhang, and the origin of the surname is subtly implied. According to legend, the ancestor of zhang surname was Sun Hui of the Yellow Emperor, who invented the bow and arrow. In ancient times, the invention of the bow and arrow was no less significant than today's missiles, so the Yellow Emperor gave Hui Zhang the surname.
For example, the couplet of the Li Ancestral Hall: "Mu Rong blooms together in spring; Zi Xiao Sun Xian passes on the Jia Feng." "It means that the descendants of the surname Li are like a luxuriant tree, filial piety and virtuousness, and the first word wood and son are Li.
For example, the couplet of the Ancestral Hall of the Hu surname: "The antique New Year painting is chic; the moonlight is clear and the spring is pleasant." "The first word for the upper and lower joints is ancient, and the moon is Hu.
For example, the couplet of the Min Ancestral Hall: "Five generations of families from the east; three moves from the south." Shanglian confessed that the Min clan first moved from Shandong, and the Xialian guide settled in Yixing Zhangmao Village after three migrations.
For example, the Feng Ancestral Hall couplet: "The big tree is far away; the Gantang Shize is long." This pair was used by the descendants of the Eastern Han Dynasty general Feng Yi.
The couplet used by Feng's Family in Henglin Yu Lane in Changzhou is: "A must-have autumn crane; three words carry a dream dragon." "The upper link embeds the name of the Qing Dynasty painter Feng Qiuhe, and the lower link embeds the work of the Ming Dynasty writer Feng Menglong's "Three Words".
The surname is a special link, usually telling the origin of the surname, or pointing out important figures in history, this couplet can be used with the same surname. Look at these door associations with different strengths, and think that the ancestors are really cultured.
Three
My mother taught us to study well, otherwise we wouldn't know if we would suffer losses, so we would take the Zhuzhi mountain of folklore in the Jiangnan region and write it as an analogy. The Ming Dynasty Zhu Zhishan helped a mean-spirited rich family to write correctly, and wrote the upper link with a stroke of a pen: This year is really good and obscure and no money to enter the door. Downlink: The demon that was born last night is not a good son and a good grandson. The owner of the house came out to take a look and read, "This year is really obscure, and there is no money to enter the door." The demon was born last night, not a good son or a good grandson. "After reading the face instantly livid, isn't this touching my moldy head?" Zhu Zhishan did not hurry and said, "I obviously wrote good words, you can't understand it yourself!" After saying that, he clicked a few times with his pen, and he became: This year is really good, there is no obscurity, and the money enters the door. Born last night, the demon is not, a good son and a good grandson.
In the past, ordinary people's parents did not study much, and the truth they talked about was not from reading books, but from the drama and from the story, which was easy to understand and always unforgettable.
There are three people in our town named "Monk", Zhu Monk who repairs umbrellas, Xu Monk who repairs pots, and Qin Monk who cooks pots. All three people are married and start a family, how can they all be called "monks"? I still can't figure it out. There is a saying that people born on the day of the eighteenth month of the lunar calendar when the monk crossed the river were named "monks". I wonder if these three people named "monks" are like this. When I was young, I often went to Zhu Monk's house with my mother, and there was an open umbrella at the door of his house on a sunny day, which was very beautiful and very beautiful. On a rainy day, neighbors gather at his house to preach ancient scriptures, usually telling the story of the poor and the rich. Talking about how the stupid son-in-law went to the mother-in-law's house and how to play extraordinary, everyone listened to the stunned joke. I can't remember these pairs clearly, only one.
It is said that one year during the Spring Festival, the rich man's house was lit up with lights and prepared to celebrate the Chinese New Year's Eve. However, the poor Xiucai family is deserted, and although the family is poor, they have to write a vice Spring League. So he looked outside the door: the rich man's bamboo garden was green and green, and the green was dripping, so he made a clever move and wrote with a stroke of his pen: "The door is to a thousand bamboo; the family has thousands of books." ”
When the rich man saw this couplet, he thought to himself: Look at my family planting thousands of bamboo roots, showing off my family's collection of thousands of books, is this not to laugh at my lack of poetry books? I cut all the bamboo, see how you door to a thousand bamboo? Therefore, in a fit of rage, he ordered someone to cut the green bamboo in half. Poor Xiucai couldn't help but laugh at himself, and then took the pen and ink, and added another word at the end of the Spring League, becoming: "The door is short to a thousand bamboos; the family collection is long with ten thousand volumes." ”
The next day, the rich man went out to take a look, angrily blew his beard and stared at his eyes, and simply asked someone to cut off the bamboo forest with roots and mud. Who knew that the clever poor Xiu only took up the pen and dipped it in ink, and then added a word under the Spring League: "The door is short to a thousand bamboos; the family has a collection of ten thousand books." ”
This pair, I later learned the source, this is the pair written by Xie Jin in the Ming Dynasty when he was young, and it was adapted into a story of the struggle between poor Xiucai and the rich man.
The people who sit in the Zhu monk's house to preach the ancient scriptures paint colorfully, the neighbors read little, and they usually judge whether they can do it correctly. Because in the past, whether a person had the talent to learn, whether the brain was clever or not, the most direct way was to make a pair, I went out of the upper link, you were on the bottom line. Test on the spot to see if you are right or not, whether you are good or not, whether you have anything new. If you are stunned, it proves that you have no ink in your stomach. A pair of deep and shallow, wonderful pairs make people clap their hands. I thought that this might have been the initiation of my childhood language.
Couplets are few, extremely concise, add one word, subtract one word, the meaning is all different. The richness, magic use, and beautiful rhythm of Chinese characters make people interested in words.
Four
There are very few people in today's life who have pairs, except for the many researchers who have studied it. People will only pay attention to the couplet during the Spring Festival and write a couplet for the Spring Festival, which is always fashionable.
Yang envy old farmer (net name) every Spring Festival is particularly busy, he has to run multiple fields every year to write the Spring Festival, and always from him to write the Spring Festival, I suddenly realized, another New Year has come. At this time, the calligraphers were extremely close to the people, laying out paper and writing Down New Year wishes and New Year visions. One year, he wrote twenty or thirty couplets and gave them to poor households in two villages. The young people are very hot-eyed, and to get the calligrapher's ink treasure, they have to do a few momentums before they can open their mouths. Such a good calligraphy, pasted on the farm door, is a bit wasteful. This is the selfish thought of the little young man, and the old farmer does not think like this. Poor people need more spiritual inspiration. Sending a pair of Spring Leagues is equivalent to sending a small temperature in the world.
Whether you are a gentleman or a layman, whether you are poor or rich, and you have a vision in your heart, you will not fall behind. Because of this red-eyed, different Spring Festival, this first month, only then did we have the radiance and the spirit.
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Written by: Lexin
Photography: Ding Huanxin, Qiu Hongsheng
Production: Yang Jie
Some of the images are profile pictures
Produced by Yixing Rong Media Center