【Tiger Tiger ShengWei Great Year, Moxiang Binzhou】 Great Plains (230) | words "playing spring"

Playing spring is vulgar and sounds vulgar, but this is the most down-to-earth saying in the countryside of northern Shandong. "Fighting spring" is actually just an activity in the Spring Festival, "Lichun" is the first of the twenty-four solar terms, is the beginning of all things, which means that the reincarnation of the first spring, summer, autumn and winter has begun, and there are customs of playing spring, welcoming spring, primula, biting spring, traveling spring, etc. in various parts of the mainland.

In the Shandong area, "playing spring" is a more typical activity, representing that hard-working people start working from this day. In ancient times, the folk held a ceremony of "whipping spring cattle" on Lichun Day to welcome Lichun. The "spring cow" is generally made of mulberry wood as a skeleton, and the soil is made on the day after the winter solstice festival, and the whip is made of red silk. On the day before the establishment of spring, men, women and children lead "cattle" to help "plough", singing songs of planting seedlings, and people use whips to violently smoke spring cattle, that is, "beating spring cattle", which means to drive away the laziness of spring cattle. Whenever during the Spring Festival, the sound of spring gongs and spring drums can be heard everywhere in the countryside, accompanied by the lyrics of the beat. At present, the production and living conditions in rural areas have been greatly improved, and due to the influence of urbanization, some folk customs have gradually decreased.

The day of spring is the beginning of spring, which is only divided from the ancient solar terms, because our country has a vast territory, and there are still differences between the north and the south in spring. In the south, some places are already warm as spring before the Spring Festival, and even in the South China Sea Islands, there are no spring and autumn seasons, it can be said that all four seasons are spring. In the north of South China and West China, spring only enters in early March, and most of the North China Plain and Northwest China to the north enter spring in mid-March. In most of the northeast and northern Xinjiang, it is still a snowy mid-winter season, and spring will not arrive until the beginning of May, but the temperature will not be very high, and these places can be said to be "winter all year round".

My hometown is in a small village in the north of Shandong, where the seasons are distinct. In my memory, when I was a child, the winter was particularly cold, at that time the family was poor, the cotton clothes worn were made by the elderly, most of the rural relatives lived a day of lack of clothes and food, the children always looked forward to the early arrival of spring, adults often said that it was warm after the New Year, in fact, for children, looking forward to the New Year is not only the weather warmer, the New Year can also eat well and wear well. In my hometown, it is customary to call "LiChun" "Fighting Spring", and there is a proverb popular in the local area: "Fight the spring and rejoice, and there are forty days of cold weather." Not to mention, in our place, it is really more than a month after the spring can change the cotton clothes, and at that time, spring can be considered to have really arrived.

Spring is a beautiful season, and many literati and inkers have praised spring in different ways. The writer Ai Qing once wrote a modern poem "Spring Girl", in which he wrote: "Spring girl is coming, who knows, how did she come?" I know! I know! She came from the south, here a few days ago, and the good news was told to me by the swallow..." The author describes the spring in anthropomorphic way, giving people a refreshing feeling, and spring has arrived in the shadow of the little swallow flying around. In our primary school Chinese textbooks, beautiful texts such as "Spring is Coming" and "Looking for Spring" describe this season of revival, full of vitality and fascination, and the beautiful scene of spring is unforgettable.

February 4, 2022, although it is still a cold spring, but this year's "Lichun" is different from previous years, this day is a day recorded in history, this day is a day of national celebration, on this day, the world-renowned 24th Winter Olympic Games opened in Beijing, the motherland's great river north and south ushered in a hopeful spring.

About author:Li Shukun, Shandong Yangxinren, civil servant, literature lover. Poetry, prose, news and photography works have appeared in newspapers and magazines, and many literary and photojournalism works such as "Laid Off the Well in My Hometown", "Memory under the Oil Lamp", and "Hara Tiger" have won awards. Editor-in-Charge: Zhang Ziqiang