Suzhou old custom: After a man gets married, the money accumulated for more than 20 years should be handed over to his wife

As soon as the New Year arrives, the talk of New Year customs is overwhelming: in the past, because the New Year was too important, everyone meticulously studied the rules and followed them; now because the New Year is weak, young people mostly stay at home while trying to remember. In fact, there are still many people who inherit the old rules, according to the seasons and seasons, conscientiously live every big and small festival, but also in the way of the festival, it should change from time to time, and new phenomena have emerged.

The biggest festival is, of course, the New Year. To talk about the old customs of the year, not to mention individual cases, there are as many as forty or fifty "popular versions" to be observed together. The ancients were about to start the busy year after Lapa Ba, and now the procedure is greatly simplified, but the busy year in Suzhou is still very common, basically every family makes egg dumplings, smoked fish, dried bamboo shoots and roast meat, and prepares small dumplings, rice cakes and eight treasure rice. These are all food, of course, very important, but more importantly, the "New Year" is a summary and marks the beginning, such a day, in the traditional view of old Suzhou, it is necessary to worship the ancestors and pray to the gods.

Old Fatou, suzhou people have two kinds of sacrifice ceremonies before the New Year, one is called the sacrificial stove, also known as the sending stove; the other is called the New Year, that is, the sacrifice of the gods. The stove is the wood stove for cooking. It is said that the god of Vesta in each family can clearly see the daily behavior of this family, so every time at the end of the year, when he returns to heaven to "report on his duties", he reports on the deeds of this family for a year, as the basis for God to promote good and punish evil. God's joy and anger determine the next year's friendship, so every household must respectfully send the god of Vesta to heaven, in order to please the god of Vesta, but also tie a paper horse and a paper palanquin, so that the lord of Vesta can ride a horse if he wants to ride a horse, and if he wants to sit on a palanquin, in short, he must make the old man happy.

On this day, the Suzhou people also have a special offering, called sugar yuanbao, that is, the shape of the yuanbao made of sugar is used to offer to the god vesta, and most importantly, it is also applied to the mouth of the statue of the god vesta. Speaking of which, it is to make the god of Vesta eat sugar and have a sweet mouth, so that he can say good things for himself in front of God. In fact, there is a deeper voice: Xiao Yuan can't help but steal it when the adult sacrifice stove, he will be scared and scolded by the adult, eating this sugar, he can't open his mouth and can't speak! Frightened, Xiao Yuan quickly spat it out. This sugar is similar to the soft stickiness of maltose, and when applied to the mouth, it is almost equivalent to sealing the mouth of the god of Vesta - you either say good things or don't open your mouth!

Sending stoves is a small program, and the New Year's Festival is a big program. Most families worship the gods on the day of Chinese New Year's Eve and worship their ancestors at the same time. The meaning of offering sacrifices to the gods is to thank the gods for their blessings over the past year. The old Fa-head man said that all things have spirits and everything has a god, and whoever sits on the table will blaspheme the table god, and that is to be cursed. The ceremony is very solemn, to burn candles and incense, to sprinkle wine and prostrate, to have a table, to have ten cups and ten chopsticks, after three rounds of wine, but also to recite words, pray for blessings. The ceremony is too complicated, and the families still have their own differences in datong, so I will not repeat them.

By the first day of the Chinese New Year, the most anticipated thing is to press the old money. The little ones paid homage to the New Year in turn, in exchange for a big red envelope, and everyone was happy, and the old law head pressed the old money was wrapped in red paper. Be sure to use red paper, but not just because of this color. We know that in the relevant legends, "Nian" is a monster, it is afraid of fire, and fire is red, so red at first did not represent festivity, but to ward off evil spirits. In the legend, there is also a monster called "祟", especially like to touch the head of a child, a touch, the child will have a high fever, so as soon as the New Year comes, you have to give the child a red paper wrapped money, so as to suppress the little monster "Qi". Over time, the pressure, according to the harmonic sound, became the pressure money.

Pressing the old money should be the most looking forward to the new year for children, but generally parents will say to children, I will help you keep it, and when you grow up, I will give it to you - this has become a paragraph: it is said that it is given to you when you grow up, but in the eyes of your parents, you will always be a child who does not grow up. Of course, there is also a way to crack it, and there is a saying in the old customs of Suzhou, "After a boy gets married, he will receive the new year money from his parents to his wife." This means that when a boy grows up and gets married, he has painstakingly saved more than ten or twenty years of pressure money, and it is all given to his wife. This is very interesting, whether it is his own savings for his wife, or his parents help him save and then give it to his daughter-in-law, you can ask for the man's psychological shadow area.

This should be true, from a very early age, because of the development of handicrafts and commerce, the status of women in our Jiangnan region is not lower than that of men. And conversely, what does it mean to give the money to the wife? Suzhou people call their wives "housewives", and the family that shows their status and respects their wives' efforts is a truly harmonious and happy family. Therefore, the high happiness index of Suzhou people is also related to the status of women in Suzhou, which can even be considered not a custom, but a style.

There are also elegant things in the new year. For example, olive tea, now Suzhou people still have to use its hospitality, with its sweet and beautiful taste, appetizing and refreshing, detoxification and greasy, and the shape is similar to the yuanbao, so it is the only choice for new year tea drinking; and for example, the joy group, refers to the charcoal base used for heating, similar to the briquette, made into a flat circle, the upper and lower two pieces are combined, put in the furnace to light the heating, to add rue incense, so two pairs of companionship, a room reunion, a full house of fragrant, warm room and warmth... Modern people have more advanced means of hygiene for heating, but whenever they think about it, it makes people infinitely fascinated.

Modern people do not have a joy group, but they have air conditioning and fragrance; similarly, modern people worship ancestors simplify the process, but add new content - some people will use modern means to give the ancestors the comments they liked to listen to before they were alive. Nothing is immutable, even folklore, it is inherited and developed at the same time, not to mention the continuous migration, bringing about cultural exchanges and collisions, and promoting the continuous development and growth of local culture. For example, the cress that Suzhou people must eat for the New Year is called "Road Pass" because of the hollowness in its stem, but in the old tradition, it means "industriousness". But no one questions the rationality of "road access", and they are all happy to hear it in the New Year, and they reach out and clip a chopstick - all folk customs are gradually developed and formed, reflecting people's various "heart machines", exhausting various methods, and praying for a fruitful and happy reunion in the coming year. Then, as long as it is in line with the characteristics of the times, reflects people's psychology, and can meet the yearning for the New Year and a better life, the emerging popularity can also be fixed and become a tradition in the future.

Column Editor-in-Chief: Kong Lingjun Text Editor: Chen Shuyi Title Image Source: Visual China Photo Editor: Zhu Xuan

Source: Author: Yu Jia