Magical and realistic memory town 02

《July 1.3》

When I was a child, what I most looked forward to was not the New Year, but the july and a half - that is, the Zhongyuan Festival, also known as the Ghost Festival, shi lonely. (With the Chinese New Year's Eve, Qingming Festival, and Chongyang Festival are the traditional Chinese ancestor worship festivals.) Because, on this day, children can play late and crazy, and eat very refreshingly.

In the south, in July and a half, there is a custom of putting river lanterns and burning paper ingots. The most unique custom of the town is to plant grapefruit lamps, and the skin of grapefruit is filled with Buddha incense like a hedgehog, and the denser the better. Only when the sky is dark, hundreds of grapefruit lamps are like Mars, and as children run, there are countless fire dragons, and the night is as bright as day.

The thing that makes children happiest is another. The elders of the family will prepare one or two pounds of large grapes and a few boiled salted duck eggs for their children and grandchildren a day in advance. The friends who live in the neighborhood always have to fight: see who has more grapes, whose duck eggs are bigger, and the buckets are endless, and they are happy.

At that time, I didn't know the meaning of planting grapefruit lamps and eating duck eggs, but I knew that it was fun and delicious. It wasn't until after I went to school that I knew what I meant. Legend has it that the ancestors of the immortals would return home to visit their relatives on the half of July, and they would cross the NaiHe Bridge, but it was difficult to travel without a boat. So the living sent the ducks down so that the ducks could take them across the river, and over time, it became a tradition to eat ducks as soon as the ghost festival came. However, it is a bit taboo to eat ducks to kill, and then replace them with duck eggs. Descendants are also filial piety, afraid that the ancestors will not find a way home, while holding high torches to guide the way, while lighting Buddha incense to drive away lonely ghosts, after which the two slowly evolved into the tradition of planting grapefruit lamps.

The seventh and half months of the lunar calendar coincide with the small autumn, a number of crops are ripe, and the people routinely worship their ancestors, use new rice, melons and fruits to make offerings, and report autumn to their ancestors. Therefore, every July and a half, every household in the town worships its ancestors, and the worship is performed in a ceremony, which is quite solemn. In order to avoid the sacrifice being brutally abused by children, grapes and salted duck eggs are usually prepared for children one day in advance, which is full of children's stomachs and also goes along with the wishes of future generations.

The old customs are fading away, and it is not easy to get a few people to remember by chance.