Festivals and customs are an important part of traditional Chinese culture. The traditional festival culture in the rural area of Jiajiu is strong, and according to what the author has seen and heard, it is summarized in chronological order from spring to winter.
Spring Festival: The most important festival of the year. In the old days, from the middle of the waxing moon, every household was busy making all the preparations for the New Year in advance. Do a thorough sanitation sweep, clean the indoors and outdoors, and clean the corners; dismantle and wash the bedding and make new clothes; hurry up and finish all the farm work, clean up the manure of the livestock pen, and put on new soil; prepare the forage for feeding the livestock during the Spring Festival.
From the beginning of the 23rd year of the Waxing Moon, the atmosphere of the New Year has gradually become stronger. Men slaughter pigs and sheep and buy firecrackers, burnt paper, incense sticks and other supplies for the New Year; women make a variety of foods, many kinds, fried oil cakes, oil fruits, twist flowers, steamed doll statues made of jujube mountains, jujube rolls, and noodles (after steaming, the tops and bottoms are colored with red and green colors); there are pot helmets, burned shells, etc.
Chinese New Year's Eve was the busiest day. Stick couplets, door foreheads, and door gods on the doors of each house, and paste window flowers on the windows; put banners with different contents on important buildings and agricultural tools, for example, paste "six animals are prosperous", "trough heads are prosperous", "cattle and sheep are full of circles", "mules and horses are full of cattle" on the walls of the livestock pen, etc.; in the most conspicuous positions outside the gate, such as "go out to see the joy" and "welcome the joy and receive blessings" on the wall of the kiln, paste "body well-being", "fushou kangning", "lying in the blessed land" on the wall of the housing kang, and paste "grain and abundance" on the grain hoard in the granary" Wheat grain full of barns", "abundant food and clothing", on the vehicle posted "a thousand miles a day" and "eight hundred at night"... And so on, and so on.
Chinese New Year's Eve night, the first thing I do is to worship the gods and ancestors. First of all, the various food items prepared are offered on the offering table dedicated to the ancestors and the statues of the gods such as the god of wealth and vesta, the oil noodle lamp is lit, the incense burner is lit with incense, and the incense is hung in the middle of the hall (a plate of incense is burned continuously for about a week), and then the paper is burned, prostrated, and the ancestors are worshipped. At the same time, on both sides of the new Vesta statue, a couplet of "Heaven says good deeds, return to the palace and descend auspicious" to welcome the return of the Vesta God.
After the ceremony of worshipping the ancestors and greeting the god Vesta, adults and children began to gather to play cards and join in the fun. In the old days, there was a custom of sitting at night (not sleeping all night). It is said that sitting at night can prolong life, so it is also called "staying up". That night, the women rushed to make New Year meals (dumplings), and the male hosts told the children about the house rules, homeschooling, storytelling, and scrolling, and the adults generally sat until dawn.
At the beginning of the New Year, vinegar charcoal (also known as Qingzhaizi) is also carried out. It was to pick up a bowl of round stones from the dam in advance, Chinese New Year's Eve night, put the stone in the stove fire and burn red, and when it came to the first son (that is, the current zero point), there were three people acting at the same time, one holding a mustard grass torch to lead the way, one person with a shovel to put a red stone on the end, and one person carrying old vinegar followed closely behind, and quickly walked through all the rooms. Every time you go to a room, you have to pour a stream of aged vinegar on the red-hot stone, circle it, and emit a choking sour smell. After the room is turned, the vinegar charcoal stone is sent out of the gate and thrown into a dark place to achieve the purpose of exorcism. From a scientific point of view, in fact, the smell emitted by aged vinegar can play a role in disinfection and sterilization.
After the end of the vinegar charcoal, the Food for the New Year is distributed to the cattle, horses, donkeys, dogs one or two pieces, and even a few pieces are thrown into the well, so that the livestock who have close relations with people can share the blessings.
On the first day of the first year, reunite at home for the New Year and eat a reunion dinner. After dinner, some of them drank at home, set off nine cards, and some went to the village to watch the social fire. In the second year of junior high school, I began to visit relatives and friends to visit the New Year. The village's social fire team also began to go from house to house, visiting the New Year and sending holiday blessings to each family. The fifth day of the first year is now called "breaking the fifth", and in the old days it was called "travel". On this morning, catch up with cattle, sheep, donkeys, and horses, put on a wooden cart, circle around their own fields, and light a fire on the way back home, and let people and animals pass by the fire to clear the obscurity of people and animals. At this point, men, women and children can travel by horse, and they can also do some much-needed farm work.
Lantern Festival: City residents celebrate the successful end of the Spring Festival by eating lanterns and watching lantern festivals. In the countryside, every household uses white noodles to make "face rats" without eyeballs (mice without eyeballs are called "blind rats"), offer them on tables dedicated to gods, burn incense and worship Buddha, curse rats to become blind rats, do not waste grain, and ensure food security.
Sting: Pancakes, fried eggs, sacrifice to the gods of the land; pour clear oil (called smooth oil) into the nostrils of regurgitated livestock and camels to moisten the intestines, lungs and appetize. In the afternoon, the cattle began to sow seeds, which is called "planting". In the old days, there was a farmer's proverb in the local countryside: "In the morning, I stung, and then I took the plough and did not (cultivate the land)". Since then, the intense spring sowing has begun.
Dragon Head Festival: Since ancient times, folk have been circulating the proverb "February 2, the dragon looks up", so the first two days of February, known as the "Dragon Head Festival". Every year on the second day of the second month of the lunar calendar, the local people will go to get a haircut, hoping to have good luck in the coming year.
Qingming Festival: It is a day of ancestor worship. Steamed bread seeds (sprouted wheat grains ground into flour for filling, good flour for skin) and other delicious dishes, go to the grave to worship ancestors, and carry out religious discipline activities. After the sacrifice, the clan gathers together to drink and have fun, and the elders tell the younger generations about the merits of their ancestors, aiming to show future generations to remember and establish a good family style.
Bathing Buddha Festival: It is said that the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar is the birthday of Buddha Shakyamuni, also known as "Buddha's Birthday". Before the festival, women spend money to buy colored paper and use branches to elaborately make various flowers such as lotus flowers, peonies, and peonies. On the day of the festival, good men and women will go to the temple to burn incense and worship the Buddha, asking the bodhisattva to bless the peace, the wind and rain are smooth. In the old days, in suzhou and Jiayuguan, in addition to some small-scale temples in townships, the most famous Buddhist temples were Wenshu Temple, Xintiandun Temple, and Bell Tower Temple in Suzhou City, all of which were places where good men and women burned incense and worshiped Buddha.
Duanyang Festival: Mainly eat rice dumplings, rice cakes, oil cakes. In addition, there are also customs of arranging flowers and willows and embroidering purses. The courtyard is decorated with blooming sand date flowers and willow branches with green leaves on the lintels and eaves. Children wear green leafy branches into hats on top of their heads to add to the festive atmosphere. Before the festival, the eldest girl and the little daughter-in-law carefully embroidered various types of purses, filled with vanilla, ice chips, musk, embroidered with various flowers on the outside, hung with colorful silk spikes, worn on the chest to ward off evil spirits and epidemic prevention; or to relatives and friends, especially unmarried women to her lovers to express affection and show their talents.
Washing festival: The sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth lunar calendar is the "washing and drying festival". From the town to the farm yard, there are many customs of bathing and drying. In the old days, ordinary people did not have bathing equipment in their homes, and people used to bathe and clean themselves every year on the sixth day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar. The urban and rural masses have gone to the fields to pluck mugwort, take it home and boil it into mugwort water, and after the water temperature has cooled to the appropriate temperature, bathe adults and children. The insatiable mugwort is either bundled into small handfuls and hung on the wall for disinfection and disease prevention (mugwort has a clear fragrance); or the mugwort leaves are dried and mashed and stored for acupuncture and treatment. On this day, patients with arthritis will also go to the desert area where the sun is exposed to sand baths.
Tanabata Festival: The seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh month of the lunar calendar is called the "Tanabata Festival", also known as the "Beggar Festival". Folklore has it that on the seventh night of the first month of July, magpies build a bridge over the Milky Way, allowing cowherds and weavers to meet on the bridge, and under the melon and fruit racks, you can overhear the sweet whispers of the two when they meet in heaven. According to legend, the Weaver Girl was a beautiful, intelligent, kind, and skillful fairy, and the girls begged her for wisdom and ingenuity on this night, asking for a happy marriage, so the seventh day of the first month of July is also known as the "Beggar's Day". The girls look up at the stars under the melon tree, worship the weaver girl, beg the weaver girl in heaven to give them a wise heart and dexterous hands; beg for love and marriage, husband and wife harmony, and white heads and old age. In addition, in the old days, the Tanabata Festival also had the custom of offering sacrifices to the stars.
Zhongyuan Festival: On the 15th of July, Taoism calls it "Zhongyuan Festival", and is commonly known as "Ghost Festival". Since ancient times, the custom of paying homage to ancestors has been continued.
Mid-Autumn Festival: Golden autumn is refreshing, fruitful and full of branches, the bright moon is at this time, thousands of miles together. The fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar is a festival of festive harvests, family reunions, and visits to relatives and friends. Before the festival, the women began to be busy burning pot helmets, carving various flowers on the pot helmets and patterns such as Wu Gang cutting trees on the moon and Chang'e running to the moon. After the pot helmet is burned, it is colored, like a beautiful work of art. Pot helmets are mainly gifts to friends and family. On the evening of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the small table is moved to the courtyard, and the pot helmets, moon cakes and home-grown melons and fruits are placed, and the whole family gathers together to enjoy the moon and taste the food, and everyone is immersed in the joy of the harvest.
Chongyang Festival: The ninth day of the ninth month of the ninth lunar month is the "Chongyang Festival" (Respect for the Elderly Festival). Home steamed longevity cake (also known as flower cake). Longevity cake is made of pasta as the base, and fruits such as dates and raisins are inlaid, just like a blooming flower, blessing the elderly health and longevity.
Winter Clothing Festival: The first day of the tenth month of the lunar calendar, it is the "Winter Clothing Festival". This day, like The Qingming Festival and the 15th of July, is also a day of ancestor worship. Because it is mainly to send cold clothes to the deceased, it is called "Winter Clothes Festival".
Winter Solstice Festival: Popular custom of eating dumplings and eating apricot shell basket rice (now called cat ears), which means that the cold weather is coming, God bless, don't freeze your ears.
Lapa Festival: On the eighth day of the first lunar month, every household cooks Lapa Porridge and eats Lapa Rice. The local rural porridge is generally a mixture of broad beans, adzuki beans, lentils, cowpeas, knife beans, mung beans, red adzuki beans, millet, yellow rice and other grains, boiled from midnight, simmered until the early morning, and cooked the porridge until extremely bad. After the porridge is boiled, it is divided into two halves. Half of it is used to make lapa rice, and the other half is kept in a pot and frozen, and after heating and freezing in the evening of Chinese New Year's Eve, it is fed to the cattle that have worked hard for a year to show their reward for the cattle.
The preparation of Lapa Rice is also very simple, making a delicious soup made of half a pot with clear oil, vegetables, green onions and seasoned condiments, adding a flag made of a small amount of wheat flour, and mixing it with Laba porridge to make a delicious Lapa Rice. After the lapa rice is ready, the ancestors are first worshipped and sacrificed to the ancestors, and a bowl is offered on each of the tablets dedicated to the ancestors and the offerings to the gods of wealth and stove. Then the whole family began to eat and taste with the gods. The day before Lapa Ba, everyone would break the ice and take ice cubes. After eating the Lapa Rice, the young people in the family carried ice cubes, and the children carried the Lapa Rice with utensils to worship the land god. Standing a piece of ice in the middle of each piece of cultivated land in his home, and then pouring a small spoonful of lakba rice, the meaning is to look forward to the next year's wind and rain, and the grain is abundant. On the day of Lapa Ba, those birds such as crows, magpies, pheasants, wild pigeons, and sparrows that lack food in the cold winter, with their keen sense of smell, flew down to the edge of the farmer's field, and after the people who offered Lapa Ba rice left, they immediately landed on the ice cubes, pecked those Lapa ba rice clean, and ate a full meal.
Small Year: The twenty-third day of the Waxing Moon, known as the Small Year in folklore. On this night, send Vesta to heaven. Bake stove cakes at home, make (or buy) sticky stove candy (meaning to let the god of Vesta eat sweet mouth, the heavens say more good words), make a stove horse (vesta god to ride on heaven). In the evening, the couplet of "Heaven says good deeds, return to the palace to ensure peace" is pasted on both sides of the statue of vesta, and stove cakes, stove sugar, and stove horses are offered. Then burn incense to worship. After the worship is completed, the statue of vesta and the couplet of "heaven say good deeds, return to the palace to ensure peace" are burned together with the stove horse and sent to the god of vesta to heaven. From this day on, every household enters the festive atmosphere of the New Year.
After the founding of New China, with the progress of society, people's concepts have undergone profound changes, some traditional festivals with superstitious colors have gradually been broken, and those traditional festivals that have been retained have gradually abolished the old habits with strong superstitious overtones, leaving people with only some childhood memories. (Li Lianfang)
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