Xinmin Quick Review | starting from Wang Anshi's "Yuan Day"

If the poems of the Spring Festival are ranked, then Wang Anshi's "Yuan Day" deserves to be the first. "In addition to the sound of firecrackers, the spring breeze sends warmth into Tu Su. Thousands of households always exchange new peaches for old charms. "This poem, which is available in elementary school textbooks, is basically well known to everyone.

Image source: Oriental IC

However, in the past two years, I have found the poem "Yuan Day" difficult to understand.

Many people do not know what is the "new peach" and "old charm". I remember reading this poem for the first time and specifically looking it up in the dictionary. It turns out that in front of the ancient people's door, there were always wooden boards made of peach wood on the left and right, and the name of the door god was written on the book, or the painting of the door god was pasted. Later, "peach symbol" can also refer to the Spring League.

There are also many people who do not understand what the second sentence of "Tu Su" means. In fact, "Tu Su" is a kind of wine. According to legend, the ancients always drank Tusu wine on the first day of the New Year, in order to avoid contracting the plague this year.

Nowadays, Chinese New Year,how many people will put peach charms, door gods or Spring Leagues on the door? How many people will drink Tusu wine on the first day of the Chinese New Year?

Especially drinking Tu Su wine, according to my understanding, in the context of the new crown global pandemic, there is a sense of ceremony, and some people will follow suit and ask for a good taste. But it seems that the three words of Tu Su Wine, like the stars falling around them, drifted away without a trace.

These two sentences are not understood, and it is normal. But just this Spring Festival, I suddenly found that the first sentence of "Yuan Day", "One year old in the sound of firecrackers", actually many children did not understand.

I asked some post-10s what is "firecrackers", and I was actually a little confused. Yes, many places nowadays have long banned fireworks due to air pollution. The fireworks and firecrackers in the children's impression are probably the "fireworks show" of Shanghai Disneyland. You go and tell the children after the 10th that the ancients burned bamboo, produced a cracking sound, and used to drive away the plague god, so it had the name of "firecrackers". It's hard for children to understand.

I think the times are moving forward. Of course, we have to keep up with the times. But to be honest, if you don't understand how the ancient Chinese people spent the Spring Festival, there is no inheritance in the "New Year" period of the strongest sense of ceremony, then the Chinese's New Year's flavor is bound to gradually drift away.

We can not set off firecrackers, do not drink TuSu wine, do not paste peach charms, but at least, we must know that the former carriage was very slow, the time of the past was very long, the love of the past was very pure, and the Spring Festival of the past was very lively...

The Spring Festival, which has lost its New Year's flavor, is incomplete and uncultured. And gradually failing to understand Wang Anshi's "Yuan Day" is undoubtedly a kind of historical sadness.

Yan Qiuqiu/Wen