"Map of Taiping Spring City" (partial) Qing Ding Guanpeng
Window stickers by He Daqi works
When the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games were held, it was during the Chinese Spring Festival, athletes from all over the world could also enjoy the customs and charm of China, especially the Beijing Spring Festival, during the Olympic Event, and their interest in the Spring Festival was definitely strong and full of excitement, and naturally had an interesting understanding of the Beijing Spring Festival. The Spring Festival, the biggest festival of the Chinese nation, not only affects the life and culture of Chinese, but also arouses the interest of foreigners living in Beijing and traveling, whether they are from Europe and the United States, or from Asia, they all express their concern for the Chinese Spring Festival. There are many works about the Spring Festival in Beijing by the ancients, such as Ding Guanpeng's "Map of Taiping Spring City" in the Qing Dynasty, and foreigners also have their own unique perspectives.
Beijing has been a prosperous place for people to come and go since at least the Yuan Dynasty, some foreigners have come to pay tribute, some are doing business, some are spreading religion, they are already familiar with Beijing, whether it is the Italian Marco Polo's "Marco Polo's Travels" or Matteo Ricci's "Notes on China" have many records, what they see and hear, has become valuable historical information.
Foreigners who come to China, no matter how different the purpose of coming to China, will be deeply impressed as long as they celebrate the Spring Festival in Beijing. Their writings, letters, travelogues, etc. became photographs, and many of them showed praise for the Spring Festival in Beijing. These written materials show the influence and attention of the Chinese New Year from the side.
Spring Festival is a joyous festival
In the book "The Idle Imperial City", Ernst Cordes recounted the lively scene of the Spring Festival in Beijing at that time. Ernst Kodlers is a German, and the book is a literary documentary travelogue, known as the "text version of the old Beijing "Qingming River Map"" ." He described the Spring Festival in old Beijing, and actually recorded the folklore of the time in its entirety, and instead of copying and copying the words of the time, he also infiltrated his own thoughts and feelings in the text.
In the section of the book, "Celebrating the Chinese New Year in Beijing," he writes: "In China, there is only one part of the year, the Spring Festival, and so many people will happily run on the streets." He believes that "the Spring Festival is the largest and most solemn and sacred festival in the whole Chinese." Today, people rarely experience "solemn and sacred" during the Spring Festival, only as an important festival for family reunion, and in the late Qing Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, the residents of Beijing still retain activities such as ancestor worship and god worship during the festival, and these activities have "solemn and sacred" rituals and meanings.
The sacrifices of these festivals are not understood by many people today. But Ernst Cordes interpreted the Spring Festival festival from a European perspective. He wrote: "When the New Year comes, the gods of heaven, the gods of heaven, will bring thousands of retinues to visit the world. Heavenly gods come down to bring happiness, condemnation, punishment, and reward to people, and it is necessary to satisfy people's new beliefs and hopes in the coming year, and to give this belief and hope to people... "He is a European, and he has different values from us, but he also has a full understanding of the meaning of the Spring Festival." He also recounted the cheerful scene of Beijing at that time: "The paper-paste windows on both sides of the hutong were lit up, and there was laughter and laughter from every house. Chinese believes that if you are happy during the Spring Festival, you will be happy throughout the year, and if you eat well and dress well during the Spring Festival, you will not worry about eating and wearing throughout the year. Therefore, people are doing their best to create happiness, to see happiness, to have happiness." Therefore, "during the Spring Festival, all the courtyards, streets, and hutongs will be filled with the sound of firecrackers and firecrackers."
Ernst Cordes recounts the old Peiping before the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, when Peiping had a relatively peaceful and peaceful life, and people were not rich, but they were still full of joy and hope for the Spring Festival. He recalled a friend's home: "There were many red notes on the gate of the courtyard with words of blessing for various purposes", apparently he wrote the Spring Festival of the festival. He saw "countless small paper lanterns illuminating the courtyard, with patterns of various motifs pasted on them." Each wall is plastered with diamond-shaped red paper with auspicious words such as 'Fu' and 'Cai', which means luck, blessing, wealth and fortune. He also seems to be well aware of the custom of "stepping on the age", believing that people "walk on it and make a series of 'clicking, clicking' crackling sounds, which is also a symbol of luck and satisfaction." In the folk readings such as "Saying the New Year's Festival" published in recent years, it is mostly believed that it is "when sending the old to welcome the new, stepping on and crushing the evil devils and all the unlucky things", and that it is the same sound as the year, which is "stepping on the old year to welcome the new year, resigning the old and welcoming the new year". The German journalist, on the other hand, considers the 'click-click', "a symbol of luck and satisfaction" that comes with stepping on the age. The age he saw stepping on was not sesame straw, but chestnut shells, peanut shells and walnut shells, which were different from what people know today, but still interesting.
Ernst Cordex is empathetic and tolerant of Chinese folklore of different cultures, and when he reports on the Spring Festival in Beijing, he understands Chinese folklore, habits and performance very well, and he summarizes the words of Chinese friends in the book, ending the Spring Festival section. "Spring Festival is the biggest festival of the year, it represents new life, resurrection, and the arrival of spring. In the spring, the sun and the moon, yin and yang... Together, they form an organic and harmonious whole. In the spring, everything in Vientiane is renewed, a new year, a new page, and a completely different year than in previous years, and so is the life of each individual. ”
There are different views on pressing old money
Foreigners do not all describe the Beijing Spring Festival in a well-intentioned tone, some out of ignorance, prejudice, misunderstanding, and some people have malicious speculation and discrimination. The American female photojournalist Dorothy Gray has a clear bad tendency in her book "Through the Moon Cave Door".
Gray lived in Beijing around 1924 and spent the Chinese New Year, but had a bad impression of the Spring Festival in Beijing. She felt that "on the eve of the festival, I felt a special heaviness, because at the end of the year, all the accounts should be settled." At the end of the Qing Dynasty, some Westerners came to live in Beijing, learned to make bad pie, ate, drank, and bought things like to pay on credit, but at the end of the year, they should settle the bill, and at this moment, they would show dissatisfaction with the store that urged the account. The book specifically records her family's settlement of milk accounts, and it seems that only white food and white drink are best. Describing the custom of checking out before the Spring Festival, she may be puzzled: "By the Chinese New Year's Eve, those who still have not repaid their debts must atone for their sins — hanged, or smoked too much opium — and that night, creditors walk around carrying a bright lantern." They walked angrily down the alley, demanding accounts from debtors in a categorical tone. In the old Beijing era, there was indeed a street scene of "carrying a lantern to collect debts", but there were few phenomena of "anger" or "cutting through the iron", most people were harmonious, creditors and borrowers were very polite, and once the Chinese New Year's Eve, even if the two sides met, they would not mention debts for the time being, and even so, there were not many people who were in debt and did not recognize accounts. Obviously, it is difficult for foreigners to know the old Beijing bureau and trustworthy customs.
Gray is fair in his Chinese New Year's Eve: "On the evening of Chinese New Year's Eve, every family will hold a grand banquet, in which all family members will attend, even if they travel thousands of miles to return, they will gather under the eaves of their parents." "She's talking about Chinese New Year's Eve meal. But when it comes to children pressing the age of money, there is some misunderstanding: "The child will also have a few copper plates to press the old age money, let them gamble a few", for the meaning of the child's old age money, Gray knows very little, and does not know where to imagine "let them gamble a few".
Due to the misunderstanding and confusion of the Beijing Spring Festival folklore, Gray was not happy during the festival: "In the noise of this firecracker, we could not sleep for a long time. Many nights after that, we will be awakened by some loud noises, and we are still wondering, is that really the sound of firecrackers in the New Year? The street scene on the first day of the Chinese New Year also attracted Gray's attention: "On the first day of the Chinese New Year, those shops that are open all day all year round without a moment of rest are now also closed, and the gate is also pasted with a big red couplet, which is written in gold characters 'Life and death by fate, blessings and misfortunes in heaven'." The tassels on the horizontal batch hung low, like a curtain. However, her account is not accurate enough, and the words of the Spring League will not be gold characters, black brush characters, and there will be no unfortunate and unpleasant words such as "life and death are by fate, and blessings and misfortunes are in the sky".
Chinese New Year's Eve dumplings works by He Daqi
Prostrate to elders and ancestral tablets
The calligraphy and painting stall of the Liulichang Temple Fair
The elderly who performed ice skating for Empress Dowager Cixi were photographed by Heda Morrison
During the Festival of Lights, "Kingo can't help it"
The Spring Festival, including the Lantern Festival (Shangyuan Festival), has left a good impression on many foreigners. The Russian Gore Petrovich Kovalevsky (1811-1886) was a diplomat sent to China by the Tsarist government. In his book "Peeking into the Forbidden City", he has a heartfelt praise for the Spring Festival and lantern festival in old Beijing, which is impressive. When he wrote about the lively scene of the festival of lights, he had many praises: "It is difficult to find a festival of lights like Beijing in Europe, and perhaps only the carnival in Italy is somewhat similar." Countless lanterns, all kinds of unique. Birds, beasts, boats, and palaces shine together, hanging over the streets and alleys, and the walls of the houses and shops are lined with them. The lights are bright and better than the day. The loud crackling of firecrackers was deafening, drowning out the exclamations of the crowd. Kovalevsky may have described the scene of the Festival of Lights in the area of Qianmen Avenue. In his time in Beijing, foreigners who came to China lived in Dongjiaomin Lane, and from here to Qianmen (ZhengyangMen) was only a few steps away. During the Festival of Lights, the front door "Kingo can't help it", does not close the city gate, he comes and goes very freely.
The lantern festival in old Beijing highlighted a "noisy" word, so there were "noisy lanterns" and "noisy Lantern Festival", just as fan Laisong of the Qing Dynasty described: "The firecrackers are still far away, and everywhere is noisy and lonely." Listen to the sound and festival, make a New Year's Day Lantern Festival. Kovalevsky naturally did not know the meaning of the word "noisy", but he felt joy from the bustle of the street scene, which allowed him to "soothe his mood" and conclude that The fireworks in Beijing were "unparalleled" and "very cheap". According to Kao, Kovalevsky spent the Spring Festival in Beijing in 1850 (30 years of Daoguang), when the Great Qing Dynasty stood decently in the east, although it cannot be said to be "Guotai Min'an", but during the Spring Festival and Lantern Festival celebrated by the whole world, the land of China was still very lively, and Beijing was even more so, so there was a "countless lanterns, all kinds of colors, ingenious" scenery.
Speaking of the lantern festival and lanterns in old Beijing, the Englishman Ge Boyi, in his book "Chinese in the Picture of the City", was even more impressed by the lanterns of the Lantern Festival: "Only in the Lantern Festival, people can see the most diverse lanterns. At this time, people take their creativity to the extreme, and design a variety of strange animal forms. You'll see children holding a variety of lanterns: rabbit lights with wheels, fish lights hanging from thin rods, green beauty lamps coming out of shells, more common gray-winged butterfly lamps or green grasshopper lamps, and an indescribably scary animal lamp that looks a bit like a tiger. He also recounts the "marquee" and argues that "its elaborate construction deserves mention." He also mentioned that "the Lantern Festival is a grand festival in China, and every household is brightly lit up both inside and outside the house, and people often use the 'centipede lamp' to achieve this effect." Due to the long age, Beijing can no longer see the "centipede lamp".
At that time, the front porch room was "lantern street", and its main product was "palace lamp", as for the Lantern Festival children's play marquee lights, rabbit lights, etc., most of them were made by children's parents. Ge Boboyi was a preacher in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, in 1848, and his "Chinese in the Picture of the City" mainly describes the scenery in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, but the account of the Lantern Festival is no different from the old Beijing Lantern Festival. The old Beijing palace lamp production is famous in China, and the German John Rabe also wrote about the lanterns of the Spring Festival in old Beijing in the famous "Rabe Diary": "The Chinese lanterns are also more beautiful than any one I have seen in Europe." Every year, people all over the country hold lantern festivals. What he called the "Lantern Festival" was the first day of the fifteenth month of the first month.
In addition, the "Tang Dynasty Famous Places Of Scenic Spots" compiled by the Japanese Okada Yushan and others also recorded the lantern festival in old Beijing during the Lantern Festival. They believe that the Festival of Lights is "really a sundae entertainment" and that "from the eighth to the eighteenth day of early spring, it is finely cut and embroidered, and its beauty is indescribable." Each house has a lantern hanging from its eaves, and the fire is brilliant, like the stars in the sky shining together." He also mentioned that the ice lanterns that appeared in the Festival of Lights were "like white jade in a row, silver intertwined, noble and lowly, all praised." Today, there are no more ice lanterns in Beijing, and his description is fascinating.
I am very interested in the custom of New Year's greetings
Unlike Europeans and Americans, Japanese people are not unfamiliar with China's Spring Festival and even other festivals, because they are influenced and influenced by Chinese culture, and some Chinese festivals are also regarded as their own festivals. Maruyama coma in the book "Beijing", which specifically records the Spring Festival in old Beijing. Maruyama (1895–1924) was a scholar and journalist who worked for many years in China at the beginning of the Republic of China. Some people commented that "the thinkers and cultural people who first came into contact with Beijing were actually Maruyama Comatose Jun", and he once visited Li Dazhao and Zhou Zuoren and translated Lu Xun's "Historical Outline of Chinese Novels", which should be said to be a person who was friendly to China. In the book "Beijing", he details the lively scenes around the Spring Festival in old Beijing. He introduced the "Yanjiu" from the first day of the first lunar month to the nineteenth day of the first month, in addition to the folk activities of the citizens, he also introduced the temple fair, the lantern festival and so on. When introducing Laba porridge, he called it "Baiguo Porridge", "similar to japan's seven grass porridge". He called it the "Stove Sacrifice" and said that "the God of Vesta is one of the five rituals of the Zhou Dynasty, which has been passed down for thousands of years."
Maruyama's Chinese New Year is very different from the Western accounts, and the words show the depth of the influence of Chinese folk culture on Japanese folk culture. He wrote in the section "Peach Charm": "In Japan, from the twenty-fifth onwards, the note rope and the door pine are decorated to increase the New Year atmosphere. In China, pine trees are generally considered to be cemetery trees, unlucky, replaced by peach charms, also known as 'door gods', which have the meaning of guarding the door to drive away ghosts. His interpretation and traceability of the "door god" is consistent with the introduction of Chinese folklore. Like couplets (楹聯, Chunlian, etc.), Westerners look inexplicably and do not know what to write, but literate Japanese people can understand it because they know Chinese characters. Maruyama was very interested in the spring festival, and he not only thought that the spring union in all walks of life was "appropriate", but also "really made people feel that China is a veritable 'country of culture'".
Beijing Spring Festival customs, ancient style remains, there is an ancient charm, Maruyama coma is very admired. He admired the custom of new year worship in Beijing: "During the New Year's visit, if it is not a very close relationship, generally do not enter the home to pay respects to the New Year, but give the big red business card used for the New Year to the guy." Even people with good relations only serve some tea in the reception room and prepare some refreshments for hospitality. Unlike Japan, guests are greeted with Tusu wine and delicious dishes. For the temple fair in Beijing, he called it "kaimiao", which was introduced in detail, and said that "kaimiao is equivalent to a Japanese temple fair, which is held once or twice a year, and also held every month." In the book "Beijing", he listed the information of the main temple fairs in the capital, some of which are now unknown, such as the "Dust Dust Festival", "Exposure Festival", "Sunburn Festival" and so on, which are very interesting temple fair historical materials. In addition, he called the Changdian Temple Fair an "antique city" and said that during the Spring Festival, "you can encounter treasures that are usually difficult to see."
Maruyama's comatose "Beijing" is ostensibly a travel book, but in fact it is an academic work, and when the author introduces Beijing, he always uses Japan as a reference, compares Beijing and Japan from various angles, and evaluates the two. Like the honey offering, he said, "it is equivalent to the Japanese pastry for gods such as the god of virtue", there are both positive parts of Chinese culture and negative parts of it. For example, he held a negative attitude towards "women never leaving home" during the Spring Festival in old Beijing and "mostly spent drinking and gambling" during the Spring Festival break. In short, Maruyama's comatose "Beijing" shows that the author is not unconscious, and the old Beijing Spring Festival he recorded is interesting and beneficial. More importantly, unlike other Japanese who came to China, he was neither a military spy nor a curiosity hunter. He is indeed a scholar, has experienced the profound and rich accumulation of Beijing culture, and is full of good emotions for the things described.
The palace learns to celebrate the Spring Festival
In recent years, some people regard the Spring Festival in the Qing Palace as a "folk custom", but in fact, it is only a royal custom, and it is not the same thing as folklore. The customs of the Qing court for the New Year were copied from the people, not created by them. The American scholar Luo Youzhi pointed out in his book "The Last Royal Family" that during the New Year of the Qing Palace, "many customs and habits of Beijing to resign from the old and welcome the new were imitated by the court." The royal family posted the word 'Fu' everywhere in the palaces and courtyards, set up doors to avoid evil spirits, offered eight porridges to the gods and Buddhas on the eighth day of December, sent to the god vesta on December 23, and set off firecrackers on the old Chinese New Year's Eve and the first day of the New Year to purify the inner court. Like the ordinary residents of Beijing, the emperor also ate dumplings on the first day of the first lunar month, and the lantern offering at various sacrificial places on the fifteenth day of the first month also indicates the end of the Chinese New Year festival." Luo Youzhi is known as the "international leader in the study of Qing history" and the president of the Asian Historical Society in the United States, and his analysis is very good.
The Spring Festival in old Beijing in the Qing Dynasty, unlike in other places, was the "jumping buza", which was called "Qiangmu" by Tibetans, which is commonly known as "fighting ghosts", which is one of the religious rituals of Tibetan Buddhism and an important activity in the Qing Palace, according to the "Last Royal Family", the Qing court "spent 126.7 taels of silver a month to support 1516 Tibetan Buddhist monks to engage in religious activities". Luo Youzhi listed the pomp and circumstances of lamas "dancing for Mongolian audiences in dresses" during the Spring Festival in the Qing Dynasty, as well as some "buza", such as Hongren Temple, Enmu Temple, Yongning Temple, and so on.
The "jumping buza" was unprecedented in the old Beijing era. Maruyama's coma is also recorded in the book "Beijing", he called "jumping buza" as "sending a gift", "a ritual of the lama", a "ghost fighting ceremony", and detailed the whole process. There is also such content when introducing the Yellow Temple, the Black Temple and the Lama Temple. Mrs Archibald Lide, an Englishman who is widely regarded as an outsider who "had an influence and effect on China," contributed to the opposition to the foot-binding incident of Chinese women a hundred years ago. Her book "My Beijing Garden" also records the content of "fighting ghosts" in the first month. Her main account is of the Temple of The TanTan. Mrs. Lide accused the Eight-Power Coalition of atrocities, saying they were "going all out to wreak havoc" and saying that "in the past, on the eighth day of the first lunar month in China," there were "jumping bunzas" in the temple, which were destroyed when she went, and that "only the scattered remnants tell us how exquisite the temple was in the past." The temple, also known as Hongren Temple, is on the west coast of today's North Sea. In recounting the customs of the New Year, Mrs. Lide denounced the imperialist acts of aggression.
The Spring Festival customs of old Beijing have been passed down from generation to generation and have become part of Beijing's culture. However, history will always develop and change or introduce new ones, and some customs and habits of the past years may not be seen, but through history books or the works of foreigners, some gaps can be filled. The Austrian scholar Lei Libai, who has lived in Beijing for more than 20 years, stated in the preface to the book "My Lingdu" that "101 reasons why foreigners should love Beijing", which is naturally indispensable to the Spring Festival customs. In Lei Libai's "My Spiritual Capital", one can see a Beijing in multiple contexts, a Beijing that collects human wisdom. In the Spring Festival in Beijing as described by foreigners, we will also have this impression, and at the same time, we will have the feeling of learning the new after reading it. Foreigners who come to Beijing during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics may also feel the beauty of the Spring Festival in Beijing like their predecessors.
(Original title: The Old Beijing Spring Festival Written by Foreigners)
Source: Beijing Evening News
Author Zhang Shuanglin
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