The annual Mid-Autumn Festival is coming again, and whenever this time comes, I will remember some interesting things about putting Kong Ming lanterns in the countryside when I was a child. In our hometown Kong Ming Lantern is also called "Fire Lantern", we children do not know why it is called Kong Ming Lantern, and we do not understand that it was invented by Zhuge Liang in the Three Kingdoms period, which was a communication and communication tool created by Zhuge Kongming when he was besieged by Sima Yi in Pingyang and could not send troops out of the city for help. The era we are in is the seventies when the country's material conditions are extremely poor, there is no ready-made Kong Ming lantern that can be sold everywhere now, we are a few small partners who buy paper at their own expense, and after buying it back, everyone divides the work and cuts it, and then pastes the rice soup made with rice one by one. I remember that at that time, a piece of paper was four cents, and it took at least four pieces of transparent thin paper of about 40 times 40 cm to make a Kong Ming lamp, and a larger child with a little money could make six or eight pieces of lamp. We little children can only make a four-sheet light lamp to enjoy, although it only costs a dime and a six cents to make a smallest lamp, but many children still can't come up with a share of the money, what to do? That had to arrange for him to go to the house behind his parents' back to steal some stir-fried vegetable oil, although this would risk being found and beaten by his parents, but all the children were willing to take this risk and were happy to do it. After the lamp is pasted, this vegetable oil can be used for ignition and the fuel of the lamp to the sky, which is also one of the expenses, which is generally done by children who cannot come up with cash, otherwise even the qualification to watch will be cancelled.
The fire lamp is generally made in the mid-autumn festival about a month or so, we children began to brew, plan things, wait for the lamp paste, during the period to continue to test fly, the test flight process and so on after the fire lamp lifted off, we looked up at it, while running all the way to follow it, to accurately determine where it landed, whether it fell on the mountain, or in the field, the river, we have to arrive in advance to catch it, once not caught, the fire lamp will burn off, if it is burned, then it really has not been at the time of the festival." The lights are up.
On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the lights are in full bloom, the crowds are crowded, the scene is very spectacular, we children are almost all night running with the lights, some of the lights as long as the fuel is sufficient, can fly to dozens of miles away so far, there is really no way to catch up. On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, not only the children in our village, but also the children in other villages, all the children who know each other are for a common goal, hoping that their lights can be sent to the planned place.
If the middle of the way due to oil or encounter strong winds and other reasons suddenly fell, immediately catch up, continue to ignite, take off, almost all night chasing, do not feel tired at all, immediately dawn, every child, including the adult watching are energetic.
Now that more than forty years have passed, today's children probably can no longer experience this kind of fun, and they don't need to make Kong Ming lanterns by themselves, if they want to be lively, as long as they spend money to buy ready-made ones, like in the past, every village man, woman and child went out together, and the scene of thousands of empty alleys to put Kong Ming lanterns can only be sealed in the memory of history.