The Big Year itself is Yu Qing

【China Story】

Author:Guo Wenbin (Chairman of Ningxia Writers Association)

Beneath your feet is the thick earth, overhead is full of stars, in the distance is the rumbling of cannons, the heart is full of auspiciousness and wishes. Sit on the edge of the ditch and rest, you will feel that the year is liquid, and the water is bubbling in the heart.

Illustration: Guo Hongsong

At the annual meeting of the small class looking for serenity, the host suddenly attacked and asked me to write couplets for everyone on the red rice paper, just to write the ones written by my father to the villagers in June in the "Lunar Calendar", "Sanyang Kaitai from the ground, Wufu Linmen from heaven", "Heaven increases the age of people to increase life, spring is full of Qiankun And Fu Manmen" and so on.

After writing, everyone began to use these couplets to assemble the program, especially the taste of the Year, watching young people in the simulation of the New Year, my thinking back to childhood.

serene

The emphasis of the hometown is that after pasting the couplet, go to the grave to ask the ancestors.

The descendants of a family or clan walked toward their ancestral graves, and from a distance, bunches of grapes hung like grapes on the hillside. The sun is warm, the cannon is melodious, and in the time when the wide and soft yellow earth is as wide and soft as the yellow earth, it is a kind of enjoyment to walk loosely without hurry. Generally speaking, the graves are in their own farmland. Wide, generous and calm, you will feel that the cemetery is a small landscape painting, and the vast mountain is its huge frame. It is said that it is a cemetery, in fact, there is no courtyard wall, and what is different from the cultivated land is the barren grass of the years, and the old trees around it, like a crown, cover the cemetery, so that the cemetery has a taste of home. When the graveyard arrived, the family knelt on the thick straw mat of the years, took out incense tables and sacrifices, burned incense, burned paper, prostrated their heads, and the children fired cannons on the side. Regardless of whether the ancestors really followed them to their homes for the New Year, the ancestors have received a harvest of the soul.

Write couplets

In my hometown, every year, the couplets in the whole village were written by my father, and later my father passed on the mantle to me. One year, when he did not return home due to illness, the villagers had to buy couplet stickers. The next year, when I went back, the villagers bought red paper for me to write. I said, how beautiful it is to buy, it is also convenient. They said, still well written, really. A "true" word that makes me think a lot. Now, it is only in the countryside that the villagers recognize this "truth". In fact, I know that my crappy words are not good to buy. So what does this "true" really mean?

Please Vesta

Please Vesta again. He went to the street with his father to do New Year goods, and found that his father bought other things called buying, but the god of buying doors and vesta was "please". Ask why. Father said, of course the immortals want to please. I said, obviously it is a piece of paper, how can it be a god? Father said it was a piece of paper, but it was not a piece of paper. I don't understand. Father said that the god of Vesta is the guardian deity of the family and also the god of supervision, and the merits and deeds of the family are under his supervision, and when it comes to the twenty-third day of the waxing moon, he will report the family's merits and losses for one year, and then return to exercise rewards and punishments on the thirtyth day of the waxing moon. Father also said that this please Vesta is exquisite, vesta god usually draws a dog and a chicken underneath, the chicken to the house to bark, the dog to bite outside the house. If you look closely, some dogs do bite outwards and some bite inwards, depending on whether your kitchen is on the east or west side. There is also that Qin Qiong and Jingde, must be face to face. I asked, why do you have to face to face? Father said that face to face is harmony, and face to face is separation. Sticking to the stove god is also exquisite, must be pasted properly, the face of the stove god should also be covered with a yellow watch, can not be exposed outside, otherwise the new daughter-in-law who will enter the door in the future is either crooked mouth or hunchback. In this way, when you walk into the kitchen of vesta again, a mysterious atmosphere of awe comes to your face.

Thirty-one mornings

At dawn on the thirtieth day of the lunar month, the first thing our father asked us to do was to expand the paper, first cutting a large sheet of white paper into a wide book, and printing money with the wooden seal inscribed with the "Bank of the Underworld" left by our ancestors. When I was young, I felt very impatient, and even adults felt that the process of printing with one hand, pressing paper with the other hand, and then printing paper money on white paper by one party was really beautiful. I don't know when it began to have machine-printed money, the face value on it is ten thousand yuan, and some of them are still Washington's heads, obviously from the idea of international integration. But the father still insisted on hand printing, sometimes too late, the brother took out the dragon yuan (a kind of high-quality silver dollar) handed down by his grandfather, sandwiched in white paper and printed paper ingots with wooden stakes, although the father's face was displeased, but finally did not object. Paper ingots, though flattering, are always much better than those bought from the street.

Make cannons

As soon as we entered the waxing moon, my father took us to make cannons. Father first made gunpowder from wood chips, sheep dung, saltpeter, sulfur and other things, and then used waste paper to roll large and small cannons, and the remaining gunpowder was packed in bags and waited for the iron cannon. The iron cannons were large and small, small as thin as a pen, large as thick as a corn cob, and an eye on the butt for wearing a fuse. It was the New Year," and I saw that almost every boy had a heavy iron cannon in his hand. In the open space in front of the village, rows of iron cannons were ready to be fired. The boys first packed the gunpowder in the barrels of the cannons, stuffed them with earth, and then lit the fuse, and then the men ran away, covering their ears and waiting for the muffled sound from the depths of the earth. My father also made us "long guns" with steel pipes and "bumper cannons" with car spokes. As we all know, the "long gun" is similar to the one used by the Red Army in those years, but the waist is smaller. Say "bump the cannon" – bend a spoke strip into a bow shape, and put a rubber band on the tail of the bow, and the other end of the rubber band is tied to a half-cut steel bar. This kind of "bumping cannon" does not use gunpowder, but uses matchheads, puts several matchheads in the spoke hat bowl, crushes it with steel bars, and then stuffs the steel bars tied to the leather bands in the spoke hat bowl, and the elongated leather bands play a role in using tension to pry the steel bars into the spoke hat bowl. In this way, you have a pocketed longbow in your hand. Then lift it high and touch the steel bar to the brick, and it is a crisp sound. Now that I think about it, my father was really cute at that time, in such a poor day, in the days of the five-two white-faced New Year's Day, he actually had the heart to do all this for us, where did his happiness come from?

Tumbling red paper

As soon as we entered the waxing moon, my father asked us to cut the window flowers early: rubbing needles with paper, nailing the pattern of the previous year to a pile of newly purchased red, yellow and green tricolor paper, lining the wooden board, and then cutting the window flowers according to the pattern. The knife passed through the paper, and a strand of confetti came out from under the knife, and the feeling was really beautiful, not to mention the joy of watching the window flowers come out of the hand. My father also taught us to draw the door god, to draw Yunzi (a kind of floral ornament hanging on the eaves, I don't know why my father called it "Yunzi"), including punching the face of the play.

Grandmother's perseverance

When men "pass" the New Year, women mostly cook bones in the kitchen and clean up the second round of Chinese New Year's Eve meals. Scattering candy and pressing money to children is generally carried out when the second Chinese New Year's Eve meal comes up, and the time should be the end of the sea, around 10:30. Therefore, during this time before ten and a half o'clock, men were like tea fairy tea, intoxicated and greedy.

What about eating long noodles? It should be time to taste the quiet time. In my hometown, in order to extend this period of quietness, I took the lead and repeatedly advanced the time of pasting couplets, and then simply started to post early in the morning. And so on, the time to go to the grave is also advanced, and sometimes if the efficiency is high and fast, the quiet of doing nothing begins at dusk. According to the custom, under normal circumstances, as long as the Qin Qiong Jingde on the gate is pasted well, the yellow table is on the upper body (folding the yellow table into triangles and pasting it on top of the god statue, which means that the gods and immortals are already in place), others will not come to the house, even if it is a particularly urgent matter, they must be separated by the door, and this conventional prohibition will continue until the next morning to perform the "opening ceremony", that is, this is a period of time that belongs purely to their own families.

Thinking about some of my grandmother's adherence before she was born, such as making offerings before meals, not killing, not wasting, giving alms, enduring humiliation, following fate, not asking for anything, and so on, respect can't help but arise spontaneously. Father said that when this man came into the world, he had three great energies to repay, one was to give birth to grace, the second was to nurture grace, and the third was to teach grace. Therefore, after the death of his master, his master and mother were sent to their deaths by their fathers, because the master had no queen. At that time, we did not understand so much, especially in the days when we had eaten the last meal and did not eat, but he offered the best food and clothing to the master and mother, and even the mother could not understand. Now that I think about it, my father was truly great.

Quiet

The main dish of the second Chinese New Year's Eve meal is pork bones, because our grandmother believes in Buddhism, my father is filial piety, respecting my grandmother's faith, we will change the pattern to make a few vegetarian dishes. The wife asked her son for advice and simply omitted this link. But the old age money is going to be sent, although it is much more scattered than the old home, but the son does not have the happiness of a few nephews to take the pressure money from my hand, the hand is outstretched, and the eyes are still on the TV.

There is also a TV in my hometown, which has some influence on that period of quietness, but the deep family foundation of the year still beats the TV, and everyone is still willing to immerse themselves more in the quiet that has no content and no content. When it comes to television, my mind keeps sliding forward. To be fair, having electricity is a good thing, but the years before there is electricity are more enjoyable. Think about it, a dark yard lit with a lantern, candlelight flickering, that feeling, how the light bulbs can be compared. Think about it again, in a village that can't see five fingers, a lantern slides like a fish, that feeling, how can the flashlight be compared. If you encounter a snow year, the feeling of snow hitting the lanterns can beautify people's hearts.

Prays

As I said just now, despite the TV and the Spring Festival Gala, the children in their hometown are not fully attracted. After eating the second Chinese New Year's Eve meal, they put on cotton clothes, played flashlights, took incense watches and various cannonballs, and went to the temple to grab incense. Several villages that worship the same temple god are called Ichisha, and the person who takes turns in charge is called the president. Strangely enough, the water and soil on that side looked very much like a big pot, and the temple was on the ditch at the bottom of the pot, but this did not restrict the believers outside the pot from turning over the edge of the pot to worship the gods. Especially in that lantern era, as soon as you go out of the village, you will see the lights in the pot and on the edge of the pot on all sides rushing to the temple, shaking, and your heart will be inexplicably moved. If it snows and the road in the ditch is slippery, everyone will sit on the snow and slip into the bottom of the ditch, it seems that the snow that day is also clean, and no one will care about the new clothes being soiled.

Then, one of the people stood in the temple, quietly waiting for the moment of yin and yang to come. Usually, when the host of the Spring Festival Gala announces the ringing of the New Year's bell, the believers and customs in the temple will light the incense watch in their hands together. It was not as solemn as the great temple, and the last head of the adults had not yet been prostrated, and some daring boys had already plucked the incense from the incense burner and gone to the temple to set off the cannon. The immortals didn't care, as if Grandpa was spoiling his mischievous grandson, and looked happily at the little guys in front of him. Not long after, the incense sticks in the incense burner reached the hands of the boys, turning into wands. Only to see the wand pointing, the fire snake swimming, in an instant, the entire temple became a sea of cannon sounds. Now, outside the window is also a sea of gunfire, but no matter how you listen, it makes people feel fake. Think about it, it is this high-rise building that shatters the sound of the cannon, unlike in the hometown, although the cannon is idle, it is echoed, "party". There is also a reason why it is not like this, that is, this neighborhood is not a yard, and even the best cannon sounds make people feel wild.

When the children fired cannons, adults with some culture gathered under the temple wall to admire the Spring Festival, which was revered by the villagers. What "the ancient temple has no lights and the moon shines, the mountain brake does not lock the white cloud seal", what "the ambition is in the Spring and Autumn Gong in Han, the heart is the same as the sun and the moon and the same day", what is "to protect the wind and rain of the Society, to bless the peace of the eight seasons" and so on. A long temple wall is covered with Spring Festival, and if you go to the temple during the day, you will definitely see an old man in a big red robe crouching there in the distance. The temple courtyard is full of flags inscribed with the inscriptions "Respond to Needs" and "Welling Appears", and silk plaques such as "Thank God" are piled up in the temple. Every year, at the society's wish ceremony, the president asks someone to sew those silk plaques into a tent for the theater team to set up a stage.

A dialogue between heaven and earth

The time of walking back from the temple was also very refreshing. Beneath your feet is the thick earth, overhead is full of stars, in the distance is the rumbling of cannons, the heart is full of auspiciousness and wishes. Go up to the ditch, sit on the edge of the ditch and rest, you will feel that the year is liquid, and the water is bubbling in the heart. If only it were new year's every day, one said. People immortals celebrate the New Year every day, another said. Looking back at the temple again, I felt that the year was again a cloud of lights in the vast night.

Returning from the temple, the family often has to sit together until the time of the chicken crowing, led by the eldest of the grandchildren to open the door, and then leave one person to watch the incense (continue the incense), the others go to sleep, but only sleepy for a while, because at dawn, the eldest man also has to pick the first load of water in the New Year's spring, and when the sun comes out of the mountain, the whole family drives the cattle to greet the god. Think about it again, the people of a village, the cattle of a village, all converge to a direction of joy that Mr. Yin and Yang believes, the first sun melts, the people shout, the cattle and sheep are happy, and everyone feels that the god of joy falls on themselves like sunshine and falls on the body of their own animals. A villager reached the middle of a pure land, only to see the president Xianghua in one fell swoop, the gong and drum subsided, and everyone brushed the ground and knelt on the ground. The president of the main incense festival. There are incense waxes on the altar, there are fine wines, there are grains and six flavors, and there is also the mood of a village. After the president finished praying, the crowd shouted in unison, thanking God for his grace! Then the five bodies are thrown to the ground. The cattle also watched intently (more strangely, one year, when the adults prostrated their heads, a pair of lambs also knelt down).

At that moment, people felt that there was a wordless dialogue between heaven and earth, one side was a great reward, and the other was the welcome of sentient beings. A "welcome" word is really apt. Standing prostrate, kneeling and leaning back, it is this surplus composed of compassion and sense of indelity that makes the years immortal and the earth evergreen. Now that I think about it, that was a blessing in the original sense. After the ceremony, everyone will not forget to shovel a basket of soil in the direction of the god of joy to take home, and sprinkle it in the courtyard, in front of the stove, kang horn, cattle pen, sheep pen, chicken pen, wheat field vegetable field, peach in front of the plum.

Mother's sauerkraut

On the morning of the first day of the Chinese New Year, it is usually hot pot. That hot pot is different from the hot pot used by people in the city now, and it is a casserole left by the ancestors to use only once a year. It is said that it is a casserole pot, and it is different from the kind of casserole pot in the hotel now, there is a stove in the middle, a sea of vegetables around it, a charcoal fire in the stove, and a ash stove below. Charcoal boils the New Year vegetables in a pot, and the dish is a slice of steamed buns, the kind of white-noodle steamed bun slices that can be dissolved in the mouth, and the hot dish is placed on top of a crisp, and you know what is called the transformation. The main members of the dish are sauerkraut, vermicelli, and shredded white radish, and the protagonist is sauerkraut, a large vat of sauerkraut pickled by the mother in the autumn. Now when I think of it, I drool, the kind of bitterness that only my mother can make.

Warm sun

The first afternoon was also good. The memory is always lazy sunshine, just like the sunshine was sitting at night last night, did not sleep well, and now although it shines on the earth, it is still sleeping with its eyes open. My brother and I walked in the kind of sleeping sunshine, going to the elders and the people who filled in the "three generations" to pay their respects. Generally speaking, we move around in order of generation, but the last one is often the place we love to go. Because we would sit down in that house, drinking the pots of tea stewed by the juniors, eating the sweet pickles brought by the junior daughters-in-law, and talking about the gossip that had been in our hearts for a year until dinnertime. People who don't know the inside story will think that this must be a big family in the village, in fact, the situation is just the opposite, he is a cousin of mine, on time and shade is the poorest in the village, but he lives happily, always smiling like Maitreya, grinning a big mouth, making people feel that there is no reason for the kiss, no reason for the happiness, no sense of separation. Although I am poor, I don't cut the door, if there is something good, I often stay on this day for everyone to share. Everyone is willing to go to his home' kang, whether adults or children. Most of the people in the village, kang shang must not be able to sit down, the children can only sit around the stove on the ground. Usually, the adults on the kang are talking and the boys on the ground are playing cards. Sometimes we simply don't go home to eat, and then play cards, and my cousin will make us a big pot of rice. After eating the cauldron of rice, and then playing, the cousin brought the steamed bun cage and put it under the card table, and whoever was hungry could solve the problem with just one hand. My father said that when Grandma was alive, at this time, almost all the people in the village surrounded Grandma. After Grandma's death, the altar was transferred to my cousin's house.

After the show was over, everyone held up a group photo of "XiangyangMenDi Spring is always there, and the Jishan Family celebrates Yu", only to pull me back from the memories of childhood, thinking, this year and year to year, is not Yu Qing.

Guangming Daily (2022-01-28 14th edition)

Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily