Text | Reading Jun
"The sound of firecrackers to bid farewell to the old year", the Spring Festival, which is the most important festival of the year in Chinese. Every Chinese New Year's Eve, every family will eat Chinese New Year's Eve meal, which means to resign the old and welcome the new, reunion.
However, on days that seem to be joyful, there are some people who rejoice and some who are sad.
For rich families, the New Year's Festival is just above the usual, more than a festive atmosphere. But for poor families, it is a very nerve-wracking thing.
How big is the difference between the Poor and the Rich?
01 How luxurious can a rich family be for the New Year?
There is an old saying that "the rich pass the New Year, the poor pass", but this is not the case.
In Lao Cao's novel "Dream of the Red Chamber", it is written that the scene of the rich family's New Year is described:
As in previous years, the housekeeper who managed the farm in Ningguo Mansion took a large group of strong men with crops, pulled an ox cart, drove a carriage, and formed a huge team to deliver New Year goods, and sent a year's gift and tribute to the owner Jia Zheng.
The original text reads:
Thirty deer, fifty roe deer, fifty babes, twenty Siamese pigs... Twenty pairs of bear paws, twenty pounds of deer tendons, fifty pounds of sea cucumbers, 1,000 stones of regular rice, a cart of dried vegetables of various colors, a takeaway of sorghum grain, and 2,500 taels of silver for livestock.
It can be said that the New Year goods in this one, casually brought out, whether it is deer, chamois, bear paws, wild boars, etc., are enough to make the poor family untouchable. These gifts, even today, are also extremely scarce and precious (of course, illegal trade in animals is illegal today, please do not catch or resell them!). ）
Of course, the gifts mentioned above are only the gifts that the rich people usually receive during the New Year's Festival, and the rich people's Spring Festival itself has been full of luxury and grandeur.
For example, in the fifty-third episode of "Dream of the Red Chamber", it is written:
At present, it is the waxing moon, and the new year is approaching, and Madame Wang and Sister Feng are arranging for the new year. "And one of the most important customs of the year is to worship the ancestors. To this end, the ancestral hall of Ningguo Mansion was opened and re-cleaned, and the tribute utensils were cleaned up for use in sacrifices.
From the first day of the Chinese New Year to the fifteenth day of the first month, the time of his New Year experience is as long as half a month. Rich people's New Year's Day, not only more etiquette, but also a variety of ways to eat, drink and have fun.
In the novel "Dream of the Red Chamber", it is written that on the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month, the large flower hall of Jia Province was placed with dozens of tables of banquets. In addition, the singing team was specially invited, and Jia Mu was happy to see it, so she casually gave the drama team a few money.
And this way of celebrating the New Year is just the most common experience and experience of the rich family.
02 How bitter can the Poor Family be for the New Year?
Poor people, on the other hand, are a completely different, even diametrically opposed, experience.
Du Fu has an ancient poem that sings: "Zhumen wine smells of flesh, and the road has frozen bones", but this is not the case.
Everyone is in the same world, but everyone and every family encounters different things. Lu Xun once said, "The sorrows and joys of human beings are not the same, I only think they are noisy." ”
As he says in his essay:
Downstairs a man was dying of illness, and the family in the wall was singing a phonograph; opposite was a child. There were two people upstairs laughing wildly; and there was the sound of cards being played. On a boat in the river there was a woman crying her dead mother.
Spring Festival, Chinese the most grand and the most grand festival. But on such a day that should have been filled with joy and happiness, some people have their brains hurt because of it.
For thousands of years, Chinese has never lost its emphasis on the Spring Festival. If it is said that more than 200 years ago, Cao Gong's "Dream of the Red Chamber" depicted the zhongming ding food home, and the Spring Festival is prosperous and extravagant is inevitable, then the poor family's New Year is also doomed to be inevitable.
Speaking of this, I have to mention Lu Xun's "Blessings" in xianglin sister-in-law, this Chinese New Year's Eve, in the Chinese New Year's Eve night when firecrackers are fired in unison, in the windy and snowy streets, she is like a grass mustard. With sadness and regret, he quietly passed away. This tragic scene has shocked countless readers.
Similarly, the story of Andersen's little girl who sells matches, who is happy in the rich family and raises a glass Chinese New Year's Eve to celebrate, freezes to death in the street is also painful.
"Nian Guan", "Nian Guan", for poor people, the New Year is like passing, this name just sounds, you know how difficult it is.
In this regard, in the previous article, The Reader Jun has mentioned in more detail the various dilemmas that poor families need to face during the New Year.
In the past, in that era of material scarcity, the poor families usually lived a bitter life of "drinking potato soup, green and yellow, and weak feet", and at the end of the year, they were often called on debts, and how bitter life was, it was self-evident.
In the old society, poor families were afraid of the New Year, first, they had no money to pay off their debts, and second, they had no money to buy New Year goods.
Regarding the ways of hiding debts at the end of the year, it can be described as various and varied. Like what:
Pretending to be sick: pretending to be sick, or hospitalized, or terminally ill. The viewer feels pity, or he can't figure out anything at all, so he avoids the "new year's pass".
Pretending to die: lying in bed, children crying and mourning, burning paper money, debt collectors see the situation, usually retreating, after all, the new year is coming, no one wants to be obscure.
Suicide law: This method is similar to the means of women splashing and playing, "one cry, two troubles and three hangings", the family cooperates with the performance, the debt collector sees it, I am afraid that it is also a hurry to escape, after all, no one wants to "stall" the murder case and eat the lawsuit.
Hiding method: When the creditor comes to collect the debt, he hides in a hidden place such as a straw pile or a box.
In order to avoid debts, debtors can be said to have exhausted various methods and means.
Regarding the New Year's debt hiding, Hu Shi once recalled in the "Forty Self-Descriptions" that the family encountered a debt collection scene in the New Year:
Every year Chinese New Year's Eve I always have a large group of debt collectors in my house, each with a lantern, sitting in the hall and refusing to go out. Big Brother has long since avoided it. The two rows of chairs in the hall were full of lanterns and creditors... In the middle of the night, when the door was about to be "closed", my mother went out through the back door and begged a neighbor to come to my house, and each debtor would pay a little money. Doing a good job of doing evil, this group of debt collectors walked out one by one carrying lanterns.
At the end of the year, when encountering debt collection and debt collection, others are at most spectators and look at each other coldly, but for the parties, the sorrows and joys of their lives are only clearest.
In that environment where living conditions are more difficult, poor people can eat meat, even sweet potatoes, potatoes, and want to eat enough food may become a luxury wish.
You know, even in our view today, the most ordinary sweet potato was only introduced to China during the Ming Dynasty, and the history of Chinese people eating sweet potatoes is only a few hundred years.
In addition, not to mention sweet potatoes, in ancient times, the poor family New Year,even the use of cooking oil, especially vegetable oil to fry food, has become a luxury.
In the early days, only the families of the nobles of the imperial palace could afford to use cooking oil, and later, until the Song Dynasty, with the development and progress of oil pressing technology, vegetable oil gradually entered the homes of ordinary people, and was no longer an unattainable luxury.
03 Reading Jun said
Time is always rushing like water, taking away too many things, Liu Xiyi of the Tang Dynasty said that "the flowers are similar every year, and the years are different" said too many things.
Year after year, some people live more and more prosperous lives, and some people live a mess and poverty.
Spring Festival, Chinese one of the most important festivals. Whether there is money or not for the New Year, in the hearts of Chinese, the importance of the Spring Festival is irreplaceable.
With the development of society and the changes of the times, the improvement of people's living standards, the state's help and assistance to the poor people, and the phenomenon that poor families have no money for the New Year have gradually decreased.
Resources:
Tang Yiyuan, the rich celebrate the New Year, the poor pass
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