◎ Hou Lei
Hou Lei, a native of Beijing, is a writer, poet, and Kunqu opera friend. Chinese Min University, he has a master's degree in literature, and is passionate about studying the historical folklore and inscriptions of Beijing. He is the author of the novel "Huan Yang", the novel collection "Man Under the Ice", "Jue'an", the poetry collection "The Feathers of the White Goose", the Beijing non-fiction trilogy "Sound and Color Wild Record", "Beijing Smoke Tree", "Yandu Strange Talk" and so on.
Talking about the Spring Festival in Beijing, there are too many things to talk about. As far as the post-80s are concerned, the Spring Festival in old Beijing, the Spring Festival in childhood, and the current Spring Festival are different from those in the present. Customs are always changing, and the customs of the New Year can best show the development of an era and the propositions and styles of society at that time. In particular, it is necessary to look at the differences between the past and the present, and these essential differences have led to the diversification of traditional practices.
To this day, there is a single-string brand song "New Year Music" (also known as "Old Capital New Year"), which was written by Mr. Pu Shuming, a descendant of Prince Gong Yi, in the winter of 1947. Fifteen song cards and ruts are used throughout the text, including thirteen large ruts and two small ruts, telling the scene of the old Beijing Spring Festival. Therefore, this article appropriately quotes a fragment from this "New Year's Music" to explain it and to recount that lost life.
New Year's Eve to Ward Off Evil: Remnants of Witch culture
In the blink of an eye, the thirty children were elated, and when they got up in the morning, they put the pair on, hung up the Wenwu Gate God next to the door, and went to shake the nails for the hanging lamp and stool.
——Pu Shuming, "New Year in the Old Capital"
There is a saying in the New Year that "Nian" is a monster, and it is also called "Sunset". We have to pass the new year and get rid of the sunset in order to have a good life in the coming year. Such stories are not very well-founded, but as far as the New Year is concerned, people have always had the custom of warding off evil spirits and exorcising demons and ghosts. Sticking doors, sticking pairs, and setting off firecrackers were originally made to drive away evil spirits, and later developed into an atmosphere of celebration.
Wang Anshi's "Yuan Day" a poem cloud: "In the sound of firecrackers, one year old is removed, and the spring wind sends warmth into Tu Su." Thousands of pupils, always replace the new peach with the old charm. That's exactly what it says. What is "always swapping the new peach for the old"?
Hanging peach charm is the predecessor of the door god. The ancients believed that peach wood had the function of warding off evil spirits, and found two peach wood boards during the New Year, wrote "Shendi" and "Yu Lei" or painted a statue of a god, hung in front of the street door, and thought that it could ward off evil spirits. Later, peach wood boards were replaced with stickers. After the Tang Dynasty, there were statues of Qin Qiong and Wei Chi Jingde as door gods. The door god is always pasted on the street door, and during the New Year, the old one should be peeled off and replaced with a new one, as well as a pair of pairs, spring strips, fu, shou characters, window flowers, etc. On the shadow wall of the courtyard, "Hongxi" or "Yingxiang" will be posted, and the traders will post "Zhao Cai Jin Bao" and "Daily Jin Dou Jin". Some people are accustomed to pasting the word fu upside down, thinking that it is a blessing, which does not have certain rules.
In the past, starting in the first few days of Chinese New Year's Eve, there would be sporadic sound of firecrackers. The most important firecrackers are firecrackers, small red is called small whips, and the large one is called steel whips, which have five hundred, one thousand, and ten thousand rings. This is to listen to the sound, and those who do not have a ring and only smell the flowers are called flowers. In the past, there were also paper flowers that were folded with paper and dipped in oil, and when they were fired, they were arranged in a row along the alley yard, and when they were lit, they were all fired, which was very beautiful.
During the day, the children would dismantle the firecrackers one by one from the line, break them into small firecrackers, and light them with incense from afar. Incense is incense with a wooden pole in the middle, the wooden pole is red, and the incense is green. This incense burns for a long time. The child put the firecracker on the steps, crept over, lit it and ran. Just listen to the snap, and it is fired. The bold dared to hold it with their hands, lit it and threw it out, and some would break the small firecrackers, revealing the black gunpowder in the middle, and put it like a flower. You can also break both firecrackers and face each other and name them "Old Man Old Lady". Cannons are related to economic life, and poor children cannot afford to put off firecrackers, and they are reluctant to do so. Since the 1980s, there have been various simple fireworks, "Red Dragon", "Green Dragon", "Drill Monkey", "Flash Thunder", and a small flower, all of which are held up by hand and released in the sky.
A large firecracker with two kicks and a hemp thunderbolt. In the history of firecrackers, there are first ma leizi, and then there are two kicks. Ma Leizi is a sound, tied to a firecracker with five hundred or a thousand rings, and put up is "Crackle- tom!" "The second kick is two sounds, two layers of gunpowder inside, the first layer collapses the cannon into the sky, and the second layer explodes, "Ding--------------------------------- The enthusiasm of firecrackers can be from lively to not lively to make a ranking: the most lively is the Chinese New Year's Eve, down to the fifth day of the Chinese New Year, the first day of the New Year, the fifteenth day of the first month, the eighth day of the New Year, the factory holiday should be put to the eighth day of the first year, so the first eight is also a day to release the cannon.
The firecrackers that really enlarge the Sect are still at twelve o'clock in the Chinese New Year's Eve at midnight, and the streets and alleys are full of all kinds of firecrackers, and the next morning, the ground is full of firecracker debris. After 2000, there were salute bombs, people put flowers, and even took a cannon barrel and put it in the sky, and everyone looked around to see whoever put it.
Because of security and other issues, Beijing has long been banned. There was a time when small balloons were used instead of firecrackers, small balloons were blown up, placed on the ground in pieces, and everyone jumped on them and stepped on them together, named Happy Balls, and now they are not played like this.
New Year's Day: You really don't have a place to buy it
Chicken, fish, pork and mutton, jellyfish prawns, vegetarian and salty bean sauce, crispy fish sweet sauce melon. Dried meat chops, ribs, fish jelly, brine chicken pieces, mustard mounds, crispy kelp, beets are fried dates.
After the eighth year, people from far away began to return to their hometowns, shops closed one after another, and the theater garden was closed and no longer sang. Even before the 1990s, Chinese New Year's Eve noon, shops on the street began to open doors, pull down roller shutter doors, and at two or three o'clock in the afternoon, people rushed home. At four or five o'clock in the evening, there were not many people on the street, and they all went home to eat Chinese New Year's Eve meal. On the morning of the first day of the Chinese New Year, none of the shops on the street were open, and the street was quiet. Therefore, during the New Year, it is inconvenient to buy things, people will buy a large number of New Year goods, and children will wear new clothes for the New Year.
In the Republic of China, only a few big deals such as dignitaries or Rui Yuxiang had old-fashioned wooden refrigerators, and there was almost no anti-seasonal food.
In the days near the Spring Festival, it is a large-scale procurement activity, and the fire is not opened during the Spring Festival. Mr. Zhang Weidong, an expert in opera and folklore, once listed the New Year dishes of old Beijing.
Meat dishes:
Chicken jelly, fish jelly, stewed lamb, beef sauce, red squash meat, pine meat, braised pork, yuanbao meat, buckle meat, rice noodle meat, sauce tofu meat, dried croquettes, red and white balls, sixi balls, red braised elbow strips, stewed hangings and crispy duck strips, crucian carp, kelp, lamb liver, beef liver, pork tenderloin, pork heart, pork liver, pig lung and wild game pheasant meat, hare breast and boiled chicken, wild duck meat, etc., in addition to bean sauce, mountain chicken stir-fried sauce melon shredded, meat diced stir-fried cucumber diced, meat stir-fried dried bergamot and other meat and salted food.
vegetable dish:
Mustard mounds, mix celery, mix radish shreds, marinated soy beans, brine boiled peanuts, marinated broad beans, pickled carrots, braised bamboo shoot slices, vegetarian salty food, dufu, du gluten, spicy vegetables, etc.
Even the poorest people should prepare these four side dishes: mustard mounds, stir-fried sauce melon cubes, tempeh fried tofu, and bean sauce.
If you like to cook, you can see the doorway between these dishes. First, meat dishes are mostly steamed vegetables, stir-fried vegetables, and stews that can be returned to the pot: meat dishes are found on the meat, and the oil of the fried balls is just fried with diced meat. Second, vegetarian vegetables are mostly radish, cabbage and pickles, mostly eating roots and fruits, and rarely having fresh stems and leaves. Because the winter in Beijing is nothing but radish cabbage, even in the 50s, the Spring Festival wants to buy cucumber tomatoes in the vegetable market in front of the house, you have to go to the big vegetable markets such as Chaonei and Dongdan, and you have to hurry up early. In the past, it mainly ate pickles, and dozens of sauce gardens of different sizes in Beijing had different flavors of sauce, and small oil and salt shops could also make pickles in the backyard.
New Year's Eve: you have to worship
"My second uncle is not at home?" "By the way, it's also a New Year's Eve." "I'll give you a punch!" "Don't be polite! Wait until you come back and say it for you. "No, it should be." ——Pu Shuming, "New Year in the Old Capital"
Chinese New Year's Eve'er began in the morning, and people came to visit the door one after another and said all kinds of auspicious New Year greetings. Children should also be able to talk, can pray to the New Year, are trained in advance at home, and when they go to everyone's house, they must say a set of Words of New Year's Greetings: "The four seasons are rich, the whole family is happy and healthy, and there is more than one year..." and so on. There are outfield women like Wang Xifeng in the hutong, and their mouths are smarter than those of the matchmaker: "An old lady of a certain family, I am here to give you a New Year's greeting, you are a good one, and you should count well; a blessing and a hundred blessings, a blessing and a healthy life, the next year is allowed to hold a big fat grandson..." A big sneaker turned over and said the flowers to you, and I couldn't think of so many words.
When the Lord's family worships the New Year, he must really worship the true prostrations. If the elders of the other party are not there, in the old Capital, they still pay attention to "bumping on the top", that is, prostrating themselves against the empty house. People can be absent, and the number of gifts must not be less. There are too many people who want to pay homage to the New Year, and they are certainly too busy to come, so they ask the servants to take their own name thorns (that is, business cards) or posts to worship the New Year, and send them from house to house. In the past, every waxing month, printing workshops rushed to print business cards, and some also printed various patterns, and flew posts everywhere in the New Year.
Chinese New Year's Eve night, the yard should be covered with sesame straw, that is, sesame stalks after sesame seeds are finished, and they will creak and crunch when they step on it, which is called stepping on the age. There are many kinds of sayings about this custom, some say that it is through the sesame blossom festival; some say that the gods and immortals are coming during the Spring Festival, and they must step on the sound to remind the gods and immortals not to rush the gods; more say that there will be many guests during the Spring Festival, and the guests will step on the sound to hurry up, in case they wait slowly. Chinese New Year's Eve do not sweep the floor at night, all those who have melon seed skins, peanut shells, orange peels, are thrown underground, directly stepping on the melon seed skin, peanut shell walking, this is also part of the step on the age, sweep the next year there is no fortune.
Chinese New Year's Eve meal is unusually sumptuous. Whenever this happens, the whole family has to pay homage to the elders in the family, the elders sit on the chairs, and the children and grandchildren take turns to prostrate their heads and say to the elders: "Resign you." "The elders will give the old money. The banknotes given by the pressed money are "bone forest" new, which means that they cannot be folded and directly loaded into red envelopes.
Greeting God in the New Year: Faith has become the norm
High fragrance wax, for people to provide flowers, a thousand pieces of yuan treasure yellow paper money. From thirty to fifteen, all the gods, the big red cotton paper into a hall of hanging money. —— "Old Capital New Year" Pu Shuming
The goods of the New Year are divided into two parts, one for man and one for God. The Spring Festival to greet the gods and worship the ancestors is not only to eat, drink and have fun, but also to the significance of family unity.
In the old Beijing, people believed in Buddhism, Taoism and various folk beliefs, which had become customs, and it was impossible to strictly distinguish between believing or not believing, and people used to do so, so they retained a series of activities to sacrifice gods: the twenty-third day of the waxing moon to worship the king of the stove, the Chinese New Year's Eve to greet the gods, the first day of the first month of the first month to visit the temple fair, the second day of the first month of the first month to worship the god of wealth, etc.
Therefore, on the night of Chinese New Year's Eve'er, there were children from poor families in the hutongs who came to send the gods to paper and codes, and shouted like newspapers: "Send the gods to you, send the god of wealth." "The children of poor people are like wandering Sanmao, and it is very painful to see in their eyes. You can't say buy, you have to say please, you can't say no, you have to say, "I've asked!" "Grab some peanuts or candy for your children, and don't let people run away."
Thirty children eat vegetarian dumplings at twelve o'clock in the morning, also to meet the gods. After dinner, at about ten o'clock in the evening, I began to prepare the dumplings for the gods. Dumplings were called "horns" and "jiaozi" in ancient times. "Son" refers to the New Year's Child, which refers to the change of years and the handover of new Children. Influenced by the Manchu language, the lumpy pasta is called dumplings, and the dumplings are called boiled dumplings. The dumplings are vegetarian and are eaten at twelve o'clock in the evening. The noodles of the dumplings are prepared early, filled and well prepared. Vegetarian stuffing is eggs, yellow flowers, fungus, carrots, coriander, vermicelli, etc., and people who pay attention to vegetarian food do not add parsley, eggs, etc. The carrots should be dried in advance and simmered in oil, and when the filling was a child, chop a little fried fork and put it in, the taste is very good.
Dumplings should be wrapped according to "strength", rolling, and wrapping. First rub the white noodles on your hands, knead the noodles into a long strip, cut or pull into small pieces, and press them. This process is called pressing "vigor". After that, it is to roll out the skin of the dumplings, roll out one end, roll it in a circle, and quickly roll it in the blink of an eye. There are also a variety of wrapping methods for wrapping dumplings, some from both sides to the middle together, there are also from the side of a little fold, at this time wrapped into a copper coin or steel hammer, who eats the steel hammer, the next year there will be fortune, can get rich. In the end, the filling is less and more skin, so I pinch a few "boxes", sandwich the two dumpling skins together with the dumpling filling, and pinch the lace in a circle around. Or in order to coax the child, wrap a few "weird-looking" ones, wrapped in the shape of a small rat and a small hedgehog. This dumpling cannot be boiled, and it is not auspicious if it is broken. If the boil is broken, you can't say "broken", you have to say that the boil is "earned". At 12 o'clock, when you start eating, add lapa garlic and lapa vinegar soaked at lapa eight, which has a different flavor.
After twelve o'clock in the morning, it is a new year. People congratulated each other on the New Year and ran to the street with their children to set off firecrackers. This night does not turn off the lights, does not sleep, all night entertainment. Sleepy people can go home early. Generally, people with strict tutors usually do not allow them to play cards, at this time they can lift the ban, play mahjong overnight, and hang up some color heads appropriately. A simpler game is for two or more people to play the color throw together, called "seven continuations, eight take, nine ends of the pot". Everyone bets on copper coins, copper plates or steel hammers. There is a bowl in front of each person, and each person puts a piece of money in it, taking turns to throw two colors. The two color subs have a total of twelve points, and the probability of throwing seven, eight, and nine is very high. Throw seven points, and you will add one of your money; at eight, you will take out one and give it to yourself; throw nine points, and the whole bowl will belong to you, and the other points will be invalid. If the child plays, he can bet on the peanut kernel, and in the end, regardless of whether he wins or loses, he will eat the peanut kernel.
People play all night until dawn and go home to catch up on sleep.
From Chinese New Year's Eve to the fifteenth day of the first month, the corresponding activity is to visit the temple fair. There is a temple fair, and burning incense and visiting the temple fair are the same thing. In ancient times, there were no temple fairs in the park, they were all at the entrance of the temple. The days of each temple fair are not the same. The most lively are Longfu Temple and Huguo Temple, which lasted from the Ming Dynasty to the 1950s and flourished for 400 years. Eat snacks at temple fairs, buy New Year goods, listen to opera and opera, watch various juggling performances, and play games that have long disappeared, such as playing with rats and toads. In the 1980s, there were performances by old tianqiao artists at the Temple of Earth Temple, and you could see wrestling, playing with the middle flag, coiling bars, saying cross-talk, etc.; in the Longtan Lake Temple Fair, you can also see the performance of the ground to sell art. One year, when the Changdian Temple Fair was resumed, the whole street was blocked and crowded, and it was only a year before it was stopped because of safety.
The second day of the first lunar month is the day of returning to the mother's house, and the mother takes the child and the father back to the grandmother's house together. At noon on this day, I will eat at my grandmother's house, which is called the return door, Guining. The mother's family should also be reunited, indicating that the wife has parents. And if the wife's parents are no longer alive, there will be fewer things to go back to the door.
This day is also a day to worship the god of wealth, and it is necessary to paste the god of wealth in the house, light incense wax, and offer live rooster, live carp, a piece of lamb hind leg meat, and warm shochu. The Chinese god of wealth is divided into wen and wu, the god of martial wealth is Guan Gong, the god of literature and wealth is Zhao Gongming, and the south also has Bigan. Merchants offer more to the god of wealth in order to have fortune in the coming year. The god of wealth is to eat wontons, which are most like yuanbao, and can ask for wealth, or wrap wontons into the shape of yuanbao. Outside the Guang'an Gate of the old Capital, there is a Temple of Five Xiancai, commonly known as the Temple of the Five Brothers, for the five brothers of the Chai surname in the Southern Qi period, they all became kings and became the gods of wealth in the east, west, south, north and middle roads, and the first two people went there to sacrifice and visit the temple fair, please "Fu" and "Shou" characters, the crowds of people, incense is very exuberant.
The first five is also called broken five, and the broken five must eat meat stuffed dumplings. The fireworks on this night will also be very enthusiastic. Most of the shops will reopen on the fifth day of the first year, writing that the opening is auspicious, and there will be a discount on the price. If it is not opened, people will guess whether it is closed or not.
The theme of the day is called Sending the Poor. That is, to pour out all the bad and poor things. There is also a saying of sending a poor daughter-in-law to the poor, cutting a little person who looks like a poor daughter-in-law, throwing it on the street and burning it, so that the poverty is sent away.
Ancestors should be worshipped in the New Year: we must not forget our ancestors
Mooncake honey offerings, full of pomegranate flowers, yuanzi apples are all pointed. The red circle is bright and bright without a little palm, and it has to be placed on the plate in addition to the offering.
Nowadays, the biggest difference between Beijing and places with strong clan concepts in the Central Plains and the South is that the clan concept in Beijing has been diluted, and it is impossible to see the scene of going to the grave on the first day of the New Year.
Speaking of sacrifices, if there is an ancestral hall at the gate of the mansion, the ancestral portrait of the family, that is, the "old shadow", should first be invited out in the New Year. The big old shadow can be more than two meters long and more than one meter wide, and there are paintings of one or more ancestors, all hanging in the ancestral hall or hall house. The ancestral portraits on the old shadow are all the same as when they were old, not young. In the era when there were no photos, it was when the parents were old, and they asked someone to paint a portrait of the parents, which was called xi rong, which was used for posterity to look up to. People knelt down and prostrated their heads at the old shadow, burning incense and worshipping. The ancestors of the family have attained the rank of five officials or above, have been enthroned, and those who have kept the commandments and have the holy will should also offer the commandments and holy wills to thank the emperor for his great grace. In many places in the south, it is still necessary to go to the grave on the first day of the New Year, which confirms the ritual of New Year sacrifice. As a Chinese, it is impossible not to worship our ancestors under any circumstances.
During the sacrifice, it is necessary to offer offerings, such as mooncakes, honey offerings, pastries and vegetarian dishes such as yam, tofu, gluten, as well as golden cakes (hawthorn cakes), preserved fruits, bergamots, mixed mixes, etc., and there are also eight bowls. Apples and whole carp are also provided for peace and security, and there is more than enough every year. Chinese New Year's Eve meal must be set aside for offering, and it will be offered overnight to the next year, indicating that there is surplus grain in the old age and there will be food to eat next year.
During the New Year, there are still many taboos, and those who have funerals and wear filial piety and wear filial piety do not worship the New Year. Speaking in the New Year should be a mouthful, and avoid any bad words such as "death and flight". From Chinese New Year's Eve to the fifth day of the Chinese New Year, he did not pour dirty soil outside, thinking that he would scatter his wealth. There are also many old mothers in the first month: do not shave their heads in the first month, shave their heads to die uncles; women in the first month do not make shoes, otherwise they will be evil; do not marry relatives in the first month, do not move scissors and do not move knives, etc., and even some places can go to the sick without seeing the doctor and not taking medicine. This depends on the situation, people are naturally reluctant to go to the hospital for the New Year, but if they are really sick, they cannot delay.
Before Chinese New Year's Eve, it was the time when people asked for accounts, and after Chinese New Year's Eve they didn't want to account, and after the fifteenth day of the first month, they said, at least let the debtors finish the Year first. And the poor people can't afford to pay back, and they really Chinese New Year's Eve go out to hide debts like Yang Bailao.
Of course, this is all a matter of the old society.
Looking back on this, the Old New Year was the embodiment of people's observance of the heavens and the earth, and people lived naturally and like all things living. Whatever the bittersweet of the past year, we must face the beginning of a new life. Therefore, this article still ends with the "ending" of Pu Shuming's "Old Capital new spring" to send you blessings from old Beijing.
Celebrating the New Year until after the Lantern Festival, the spring breeze is tuned to jade, and the lady's qi turns to jin Ou. The day is long, the small window has nothing to do to make up the lyrics of the song [Lying Cow], singing is: qi back incense, people increase life, one door and shunle leisurely; eat without worry, wear without worry, name does not dispute, profit does not seek. May the children read the female weaver freely and be blessed for a long time, who is willing to go down to the gods to find the marquis.
Photo courtesy of Hou Lei