Nian Beast VS Door God, such a topic for adults, looks like Sun Wukong vs Gray Wolf, it looks quite awkward. In fact, if we look at it from a different perspective and stand in the perspective of children, we will find that such an imaginative topic can just satisfy their strong desire for knowledge.
Therefore, when children ask such questions, we do not have to deny it first, as long as we pay attention to skills, correct guidance, and in turn, with the help of these topics, stimulate the child's inner motivation to actively explore the world, and enhance the child's initiative in learning.
First, how to correctly guide children to discuss such seemingly irrelevant issues?
When parents communicate with children, the most taboo is to ask children according to the thinking of adults, which is not only relatively poor in effect, but also easy to backfire, causing children to be dissatisfied with parents.
Interest is the best teacher for children.
In fact, we may wish to put ourselves into the perspective of children, try to use the way children like to play, and spread knowledge and culture to children.
A small example: the sitcom.
In the first step, we can consult the knowledge about the Nian Beast with the child, and then encourage the child to draw the image of the Nian Beast after he understands it;
In the second step, we can play the Nian Beast sitcom with the children on the basis of the first step, which is a game mode with a strong sense of substitution, which can help children more intuitively understand the customs of the ancients to drive away the Nian Beasts, thereby improving the children's enthusiasm for learning.
After sharing some more practical experiences of interacting with children, we should also pay attention to the fact that when answering children's questions, we must also pay attention to the fact that the information should not only be as easy to understand as possible, but also be rich and interesting.
Second, what exactly is the Nian Beast?
The Spring Festival can be said to be the most grand festival of the year for our Chinese nation. But in fact, as a traditional custom that has been continued for thousands of years, the name of the New Year is "Spring Festival", which has only a history of more than 100 years since it was formally established in 1914.
What is more interesting is that even as early as the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the ancients had the custom of celebrating harvests and sacrificing ancestors at the turn of the new and old years, but no historical book accurately recorded the origin of the Spring Festival, and the scattered ancient books we see today are all vague, and some even record the content is completely different, and thus evolved into several different versions.
For example, in the case of the Nian Beast story that we are familiar with, there are three different versions of the story, and none of them are found in the historical data. That is to say, the image of the nian beast is gradually evolved from the legends and stories handed down from the folk.
Next, let's take a look at the three versions of the Nian Beast story that have been passed down to this day:
The first story, a long time ago, was a monster called Nian, which looked like a lion but had a single horn on its head, and lived deep under the sea on weekdays, but when it came to the New Year, it would climb ashore and come to the human village to rob us of our livestock.
The villagers were overwhelmed, and over time, every year during the Spring Festival, in order to escape the persecution of the Nian beast, the villagers had to flee to the mountains to live.
One year, when the villagers of Taohua Village were planning to take refuge in the mountains, they suddenly came from outside the village to a begging old man, hoping that the villagers would give him a little food. At that time, everyone was worried about themselves, where was the air traffic control him?
In the end, an old woman kindly gave the old man a little food and advised him that the beast was coming, and if he wanted to survive, he should quickly take refuge in the mountains. Who knew that after hearing the old woman's reminder, the old man stubbornly wanted to stay and guard her home.
After the old woman saw that no persuasion was useful, she went to the mountain with the villagers to take refuge.
When the night was quiet, the Nian Beast did come, and the Nian Beast looked at the whole village, only the old woman's house still had lights, so he gave priority to walking towards the old woman's house.
Nian Beast thought he could have a full meal, but he did not expect that the door of the old woman's house was pasted with big red paper, and when he approached, there was a "banging" firecracker sound in the courtyard, and Nian Beast was frightened and fled away.
Since then, the villagers have known the weakness of the Nian Beast, and in the days that followed, the villagers drove away the Nian Beast by burning firecrackers and sticking red paper every Spring Festival.
The second story, the legend is that there is a monster called "Nian", which is fierce in appearance and fierce in personality, and it will come out every year when it gets dark to eat animals and hurt people and animals.
The ancients would make a meal in advance on this day, and then the family would get together to eat the "Chinese New Year's Eve meal" and spend the "New Year's Pass" together. Because everyone didn't know if they would become the target of the Nian Beast, this meal was particularly hearty.
Later, the ancients were surprised to find that as long as the lights were not turned off at home, everyone gathered together to chat about the mountain, the Nian Beast did not dare to come, in order to expel the Nian Beast, the wise ancients lit firecrackers and chatted all night on this day, and later, the Nian Beast did not appear again.
Customs such as "keeping the year", "eating Chinese New Year's Eve meals" and passing the New Year have also been passed down.
The third story, legend has it that in ancient times there was a monster called "Xi", which would come out and hurt people every year at the end of the year, and people had no choice but to hide in the bamboo forest and try to survive.
One day, when the villagers were taking refuge, they found a lonely child, and out of kindness, the villagers took the child to the evacuation point together.
At that time, the villagers did not know that this child "Nian" was actually a god sent by heaven to save them.
The child felt the kindness of the villagers, so he told the villagers that the weakness of "Sunset" was actually the sound of firecrackers from the burning of bamboo knots, and there were red things.
Under the guidance of the children, the villagers successfully got rid of the threat of sunset, and later in order to commemorate the children, everyone named the first day of the first lunar month after his name "Nian".
Third, isn't the door god an exorcism, why doesn't he help us drive away the Nian beast?
And these elements happen to be the Spring Festival customs that we are familiar with.
This is not a coincidence, through the elements mentioned in these stories, we can find that they should have been gradually evolved from the Tang Dynasty to form folk tales.
According to the document "Reminiscences of the Customs of the Old Age" published in 1933 and the earliest mention of the "Nian Beast", the image of the Nian Beast in the hearts of people at that time should be:
"It has a hanging purple micro star to paint the axis, the painter paints a stone pillar, and the lock on the pillar resembles a dog and not a dog beast, or the cloud is a beast, that is, the Tengu Star, or the cloud is the name of the beast, often lusting to eat people, and the purple micro star is locked, so it does not make the netherworld wanton, but makes people not suffer from the New Year, so it is most appropriate to hang this at the New Year."
The Nian Beast mentioned here is actually a historical prototype, which is mentioned in Du Fu's "Tengu Fu" of the Tang Dynasty: Fu He Tiangu is rugged and rugged, and the qi is unique. The color resembles a fox, and it is as small as an ape.
Art comes from life.
From this, we can know that in the hearts of the ancients, the prototype of the Nian Beast, "Tengu", is actually the Northwest Mastiff, but the ancients combined with some of the mountain monster images in their imagination to become a new monster such as "Nian".
After understanding the origin of the Nian Beast and the actual prototype, we can guide the children to think about why the Door God does not help us drive away the Nian Beast from four aspects.
2, the door god in the hearts of the ancients is to guard the homeland, drive away the evil gods, and the nian beast is only the protagonist of the folk tale created based on the dog, in reality, everyone does not need to be afraid of the nian beast, so there is no need to use the door god to drive away the nian beast;
3, the main duty of the door god is to drive away ghosts, while the nian beast is only a larger dog, so in the story system, the door god does not have the duty to drive away the nian beast.
4, according to the setting in the story, the weakness of the Nian Beast is very obvious, when we celebrate the New Year normally, we have already met the conditions for expelling the Nian Beast, so we do not need the door god to drive the Nian Beast.
In addition, we can also guide children to divergent thinking and use their imagination to imagine more possibilities.
I believe that after this series of activities, we can not only meet the child's curiosity, but also deepen the feelings between us and the child, such a parent-child interaction method is really a good activity that integrates knowledge and leisure.