Slang
Author Fucha Baoren
The Manchu people have a folk proverb: "Children look forward to the New Year, and they will be hungry in the New Year." The New Year is the most festive day of the year, full of beauty and full of hope. The Manchus use the New Year's food and entertainment, receiving blessings from the gods, and recording and inheriting the quaint and lively "New Year". It can be said: "Double pine qi cut auspicious flowers, knot color hanging symbol 10,000 homes" The Manchus are a fishing and hunting people that gallop between the White Mountains and the Black Water, influenced by the Han culture of the Central Plains later, in the early years, the concept of "Nian" was very indifferent and did not know why it was "Nian", let alone the customs of the New Year Festival.
During the confrontation between the North and the South of the Song Dynasty and The Jin Dynasty in history, such a diplomatic incident occurred. During the Central Plains Song Dynasty, an envoy named Hong Hao sent an envoy to the Jin Dynasty, but he was unexpectedly detained in the Lengshan Mountains of the Jin Dynasty (near the small town of present-day Shulan City, Jilin Province). Fifteen years later, Hong Hao returned to his homeland of Zhongyuan and wrote a "Song Desert Chronicle" from memory, which detailed the mountains, rivers, geography, slang customs, etiquette, and imperial examinations of the Manchu ancestors Jin Jurchens. What made Hong Hao feel very strange was that the jin jurchens who were so powerful militarily did not know what "nian" was? Hong Hao wrote in the Song Desert Chronicle:
The Jurchens are too young to go back in time, and their people do not know the chronology. Ask the question: I have seen the grass green a few degrees! The cover is made of grass and green
One year old also. Since the Xingbing, immersed in the Chinese style, the chieftain Changsheng Dynasty (birthday) has chosen a good birthday. Sticky Han to Zhengdan (the first day of the first lunar month),
The Enlightenment Room is held on New Year's Eve (the fifteenth night of the first month), and the U-drag horse is above (Shang has been festivald). Others include Zhongwu (Dragon Boat Festival) and Tanabata (early July
7), Shigekyu (9th in September), Middle Autumn (August 15), Nakashita Gen (July 15, October 15), and April 8 (
Bath Buddha Festival) both. It is also useful for november Dan, which is called Zhou Zheng.
From Hong Hao's records, we can see that the Jurchens of the Jin Dynasty were deeply influenced by the Han culture of the Central Plains. It turned out that the Jurchens, who only knew a few degrees of green grass in the spring breeze, not only knew the year, but also knew to arrange their birthdays for a good time, so as to place a good wish in life.
With the advance of the times, especially the arrival of a large number of Eastern Han people who broke into guanguan, the Jurchens and their descendants manchus not only accepted the "Nian" and "Festivals", which were the Central Plains Han culture, but also liked these New Year's Festivals that could indulge in eating, drinking, singing and dancing, and entertaining, and gradually formed many folk slang customs with their own national characteristics in these years.
Years ago, a tense "busy year"
In the early years, Kanto entered the Waxing Moon and had a New Year's atmosphere. A widely spread folk proverb says, "Don't cry, children, children, kill pigs after lapa eight!" "Children, children, don't be hungry, after the eighth year will be the New Year!" "Flooded with eight garlic, Zhang Luo has a big year!" Although these proverbs are words that tease children, they tell the Manchu people's expectations for the New Year after working all year round. Therefore, it also left the saying of "Lapa Porridge for Sending Letters, Lapa Eight Garlic for Messengers", which means that Lapa Porridge and Lapa Garlic have sent information about the New Year, and the annual Spring Festival celebrations have begun.
The Manchus call the New Year "Too Big Year", which means to make a lot of tedious preparations, and then to have a "big year" with food and drink, clothing and clothing, and fun and fun. The Manchu people are in charge of preparing "chewing things" for the New Year, purchasing New Year's items, preparing clothes, hats, shoes, socks, and offerings for the New Year, which are called "busy years" or "running the New Year". In the words of the people, a busy year is not a matter of one day or two days, and it is necessary to be busy for more than half a month from Laladi.
In the waxing moon, the division of labor between men and women, old and young, is clear, but the busiest is still women. There are so many things they have to do, and the first choice is to prepare new clothes for the family. In the past, poverty could not afford to buy new clothes, and only during the New Year did people add one or two new clothes and pants or new shoes and socks, and washing futons, curtains, covers, curtains, curtains, pillowcases and other things were too much, and women began to be busy as soon as they entered the waxing moon.
Manchu women are busy and joyful, and their main thing is to prepare "New Year chews" for their families (Manchus call the new year to eat things "New Year chews"). The Manchu diet is to like to eat sticky food. In the early years, the northeast was rich in sticky sorghum, sticky brown rice (sticky corn), rhubarb rice, small yellow rice, river rice (glutinous rice), etc. The Manchus soaked these sticky grains, some soaked in water and then ground into water surfaces, and some were directly ground into flour. Then use steaming, boiling, frying and other cooking methods to make cakes, sticky cakes, suzi leaf cakes, boli leaf cakes, linden leaf cakes, fried cakes, sprinkled cakes, poured cakes, sticky fire, sticky bean buns, etc., 20 to 30 kinds of sticky traditional cuisine. Among them, sticky bean buns are an indispensable food for the New Year. Because its sticky characters are homophonous with "year", bean bags are reunion-shaped, so the Manchus take its meaning of "New Year, reunion round", pinning people's wishes for a new year of family reunion and hongxi auspiciousness.
To make a new year bean bun, first of all, soak the rhubarb rice, small yellow rice, river rice (glutinous rice), millet, adzuki beans, mung beans, etc. Then the stone mill drove the little donkey and ground the white and yellow grain into a "water face". If the poor conditions in the family are not good, they have to use people to push and grind the water. After that, after soaking the red beans and mung beans and steaming them into bean paste filling, you can start to wrap the "sticky bean buns" and "boli leaf cakes" and other annual feasts.
The women of the various families in the village, when they heard that whoever started to wrap the sticky bean bag, would take the initiative to go to "nag". The so-called "nagging busy" is to nag (small talk) while telling jokes while busy with the sticky rice dough in your hand. And the old mother (mother, Manchu for grandma) who can tell "blind words" (storytelling) is working while telling the legendary stories in the Kanto Mountains, what changbai mountain grandfather, the family hero god god, the ginseng girl, the ginseng head, the black blind man, the mountain dog are all endlessly strange and bizarre. With the roaring north storm and snow outside the house, the old mother's unhurried "blind talk" and the laughter and joy of the women, each family will eat a month of sticky food.
In the Busy Year of the Manchus, the men are busy with some "rough work", such as killing pigs, filling blood sausages, cutting "pork mixers", killing chickens and ducks, erecting lantern poles, tying lanterns, sweeping houses, pasting sheds, chopping firewood, "playing New Year paper", "pasting pairs", "pasting incense buckets", "sticking stickers" and so on. Although these "busy years" are many, they are not done in a day, but are busy according to the timetable that has been passed down for a long time. In the Northeast, there is such a proverb of "busy years":
Twenty-three, the King of Vesta went to heaven;
Twenty-four, write big characters (write spring league);
Twenty-five, sweeping the soil;
Twenty-six, chopping pork;
Twenty-seven, slaughtering roosters;
Twenty-eight, steamed flowers (manchu ancestor worship);
Twenty-nine, paste incense bucket (Manchu sacrifice heaven and earth);
Thirty nights to keep a night (keep the age).
On the 23rd day of the 23rd lunar month, the people of Kanto call it "The New Year", also known as the "Stove King's Day". The Manchus, who believe in shamanism, revere the god of fire, so they also have great reverence for the fire god of the "Stove King" from the Central Plains. On the twenty-third day of the lunar month, every family will go to the annual gathering to invite a king of the stove to sacrifice. On both sides of the statues of the stove king and the stove king's grandmother next to each stove, there are also couplets that are almost like the family: "The heavens say good things, and the netherworld keeps peace", and Yokozuna is the "head of the family". Under the idol is a god board (small wooden board), which is an offering of sacrifices. Folklore has it that the twenty-third day is the time when the Emperor of The Stove reported to the Jade Emperor.
People were afraid that the Stove King would report some unfavorable things after the heavens, so on the twenty-third day, they offered the Stove King and the Stove King's grandmother. People offer offerings such as puppies and chickens made of melon fruits, stove sugar, sorghum, grass, liquor, and straw (sorghum stalks). Since it is a heavenly travel mount, it is indispensable to have a pony made of sorghum straw. Some people also prepare a handful of sorghum or grain grass as horse material for the king of the stove, which can be described as thoughtful. Some people would catch a cockroach live creature and give it to the Stove King as a mount. After all the offerings are done, people will prostrate themselves and pray reverently: "The king of the stove is zhang, riding a big horse and carrying a gun, saying good things to heaven, and keeping peace in the netherworld!" ”
After the worship, the stove king, the statue of the grandmother of the stove king, and all the offerings were burned, symbolizing its sending to the heavenly court. However, people will never forget to glue the mouth of the stove king with sticky stove sugar first, so that he will not say something that should not be said after the day. Some people also smear some stove candy or sticky cakes on the stove door. If you think about it carefully, the simple and thick Manchus and other devout gods seem to have paid for the gods!
In the Qing Dynasty, the Manchu people offered sacrifices to the stove prince and the grandmother of the stove king on the stove platform, all dressed in the costumes of Qing officials and Fujin, and people burned incense for worship, and the "Wangkui County Chronicle" of Heilongjiang Province during the Republic of China period contains:
On the evening of the same day, in front of the ghost god's seat, the lamp is lit and incense is burned, and it is made into a horse, chicken, dog, and other things for the pre-case. One grip of sorghum, one handful of wrong grass, one tin candy
dish. When offering tablets, smear a little sugar on the stove door, burn incense and wine, take horses and dogs, and attach them to the vesta card and burn it. Put firecrackers a few times, call it
Send Vesta.
Manchu "sacrificial stove" also has a peculiar custom, women who circle around the stove all day long can not sacrifice the stove, but the elderly men who do not touch the stove come to the stove to send the stove to the king, because the man is the head of the family. There is a Manchu proverb: "Men do not worship the moon, and women do not sacrifice stoves". The custom of the Kanto festival stove has been passed down for a long time, and on this day people also borrow the light of the stove king to eat some good food, so the twenty-third day of the waxing moon of the stove is called "small year".
"Little Year" is the prelude to the Spring Festival. In the past, children liked "Little Year" the most, because the stove sugar that smeared the mouth of the stove king was only the meaning, and more stove sugar was used to coax children. I remember when I was a child, I entered the Waxing Moon, and I thought about eating a large piece of stove sugar once a year. In addition to stove candy, families also buy some small items such as glass balls, jade flowers, wool whips, and firecrackers for children on this day. On this day, the adults are busy steaming and wrapping dumplings. As the Qing poet Shen Zhaozhen chanted:
The sugar cake and wine are served, and the New Year has not yet arrived in the new year.
Abundant food and beverage materials feed, steamed steamed water corner buns.
"Twenty-four big characters", the twenty-fourth day of the waxing moon is the day when the traditional "big characters" (Spring League) are written. The Manchus in the northeast were influenced by Han culture for a long time and began to paste pairs, fu characters, hang New Year paintings, and invite door gods at the New Year, hoping for a beautiful new year.
Speaking of the history of the Spring League, it is indeed a long time ago, and the earliest originated from the ancient peach symbol. According to the Book of Etiquette of the Later Han Dynasty, the peach charm is six inches long and three inches wide, and the names of the great gods of ghost exorcism "Shendi" and "Yu Lei" are written on the peach wood board. "On the first day of the first lunar month, the creator of the rune is a household, the name of the immortal wood, and the fear of a hundred ghosts."
The Qing Dynasty's "Records of the Yanjing Dynasty" records: "The Spring League, that is, Tao Fu Ye". The Manchu Family's Spring Festival is an accepted traditional Han culture. During the Qing Dynasty, the imperial court advocated the use of Manchu in the northeast region, which was a vertical script borrowed from Mongolian cultural creation, and few people would write and use it, so the Manchus in the northeast did not stick to the Spring Festival in the early years. After the middle of the Qing Dynasty, there were more "displaced people" and "displaced people" of the Han nationality in the northeast, and only these Han people posted the Spring Festival League during the New Year.
The Manchus' New Year's Eve pasted the Spring Festival, which was a matter from the end of the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China. Although the early Spring League was a stylized word such as "auspicious", "Fuqing", "Spring Is Always There", and "Qing Youyu", the Spring League was still the white advocated by the Manchus, which was very different from the Han customs. The Manchu Spring League changed from white to red, which was already a matter of the Republic of China. In the early years, the old Spring League, which was more popular, included "heavenly grace is as deep as the sea, and earth morality is as heavy as a mountain"; "silver is born in the soil, gold comes out of the earth" that respects the god of land; "the lord of wealth in heaven, the god of blessings on earth"; and "the cow races south mountain tigers, horses resemble beihai dragons" and so on.
Poor people can't afford to buy pairs and New Year paintings, so they paste some red, yellow, and pink colored notes in the house to add some colors to the home and increase some of the atmosphere of the New Year. The emphasis is on "god will be pasted", so "every door must be pasted, and everything must be pasted". Like the ancestral board, the top of the board is pasted with "ancestors on the top" and "zude is hanging high"; on the gate is pasted "go out to see the joy" and "double happiness is near the door"; on the window is pasted "peace of the four seasons" and "Hongxi auspicious"; on the pigsty is "fat pigs full of pens"; on the chicken nest and duck rack is "flocks of chickens and ducks"; on the horse shed and cowshed is "six livestock are prosperous"; on the granary is "five grains and abundant", etc.
In the early years, the windows of Manchu houses, whether open or dark, were pasted with white window paper, and in order to add festive colors to the festival during the New Year, people would paste various red paper cuts on the white window paper to decorate, called "window cut flowers".
On the twenty-fourth day of the waxing moon, the manchu big girls, little daughters-in-law, and old ladies will all use scissors to cut window flowers. There are many traditional window flowers in shape and style, such as three sheep (yang) kaitai, four xi linmen, five bats (fu) dedication, two dragon play beads, magpie dengmei, swallow dance peach plum, peacock peony, etc., all the meaning of beautiful and festive content can be cut into new year window flowers. Cutting window flowers in the New Year is also a time for Manchu women to be more skillful than their hearts, so the new daughter-in-law who married a few years ago must cut more to show her cleverness and ingenuity, so that relatives and neighbors can take a look.
Manchu families not only have to paste couplets, hang New Year paintings, paste spring strips, cut window flowers, but also stick "hanging sticks" during the New Year. The Manchu family's New Year sticky "hanging sign" is very distinctive, and the Manchu family's "sticky hanging sign" is an important part of the New Year, and the hanging sign is less than half a foot wide and more than a foot long. Manchu Shangbai believes that white is auspicious and pure, and red is blood color as fierce, so in the early years, the couplets and hanging signs of Manchu families were white.
Later, under the influence of Han culture, it began to be cut and engraved with five colors of paper such as red, yellow, blue, green, and pink, and the pattern pattern was lined with words such as "cautious and final pursuit of the distance", "Hongxi auspicious", "Fulu Ankang" and so on, and the lower part was cut into stripes or spikes. Most of the hanging signs are posted in groups of four above the doors and windows and below the Woyuanku (Divine Seat), and there are also five, seven, and nine stickers posted in groups. It is said that some of them were moved from a few ditches in the Changbai Mountains in those years, and they glued a few sheets to show that they did not forget the birthplace of the ancestors. There are also hanging paper with the color of red, blue, yellow, and white to indicate that they are a certain color flag of the Eight Banners of Manchuria.
Hanging signs are also the rituals used by the Manchus for worship, and there are sticky hanging signs on the ancestral plates and the upper part of the ancestral boxes. In particular, the hanging sign above the "Mama Pocket" on the right side of the ancestral plate is even more indispensable, which is a tribute to the Manchu first mother "Foduo Mother". Manchu family concepts are very strong, so each "Hala" (surname) mostly has its own commonly used colors and patterns, and large households also use Manchu writing hanging signs. In the traditional concept of the Manchus, the hanging sign has the effect of driving away evil spirits and avoiding evil and auspiciousness, so it cannot be pasted at will. For example, if there is a deceased person in the home before the New Year, it can only be glued to the blue or white hanging stick.
After the Qing Dynasty settled on Beijing, the slang custom of "hanging signs" for the New Year was brought to Beijing and the Central Plains by the Manchus. The "Records of the Yanjing Dynasty" says: In the Qing Dynasty, the hanging sign was "engraved on red paper in auspicious words, long and close, sticky in front of the door, and the peach symbol (Spring League)" was reflected. Nowadays, the Manchu hanging sign is not only an ornament for the New Year, it has become a traditional national paper-cutting art, which inherits the profound connotation of the Manchu people, an ancient northern ethnic group, sacrifice and festival culture.
The twenty-fifth day of the Waxing Moon is the New Year's Day when the Manchu families are cleaning up and tidying up. On this day, we must clean up the inside and outside of the house and the underground of the kang. Women have to do more work, such as removing and washing bedding, clothes and pants, window curtains, curtains, curtains and shabu-shabu. In the early years, Manchu families had the custom of washing clothes and bedding in quilts. The futon noodles that have been used for most of the winter are dismantled and washed years ago, and after washing, they must be hung with rice soup or clear flour soup.
After drying, stack on the mallet board and beat it flat with a mallet. The Manchus call it "pulp washing". The bedding clothes after the pulp washing are both flat and easy to wash next time, and in the era when there is no washing machine, pulp washing is indeed a good way. In the past years, as soon as they entered the Wax moon, Manchu women began to wash the bedding with their hands. At this time, when you come to the Manchu village, you will hear the sound of the stick and hammer, as if it is playing the music of the New Year. The men did rough things like sweeping sheds, pasting sheds, pasting windows, cleaning yards, etc.
"Twenty-five sweeping away the dust" has the meaning of sweeping away the filth, sweeping away the evil qi and cleaning up the New Year, and pulling out the ominous, and there is a beautiful hope of a new look and a new year. In fact, it has been a year since the yard and yard inside and outside the house, tables, chairs, boxes, cabinets, clothes and bedding, and garbage and dirt, how can it be cleaned up in a moment and a half? It takes many days, so in the early years it was popular to sweep away the dust folk proverb:
On the twenty-fifth day of the lunar month, dust sweeping the house soil.
On the twenty-sixth day of the lunar month, the shed is enough.
On the twenty-seventh day of the lunar month, wash your dirty clothes.
On the twenty-eighth day of the lunar month, the house was wiped.
On the twenty-ninth day of the lunar month, all the dirt was removed.
The Qing Jia Lu records: "The Wax will be crippled, choose the Constitution Book, it is advisable to sweep the Yu Day, and go to the court to be dusty." Or on the twenty-third, twenty-fourth and twenty-seventh days, it is commonly called 'dusting'. According to the old saying, "dust" and "chen" are harmonized, and sweeping away the dust in the home before the new means removing the old filth of the old year and sweeping the "obscure", "bad luck" and "poor gas" out of the house to welcome the New Year. This custom carries people's good wishes for breaking the old and building a new one, and the prayer to leave the old and welcome the new.
In the early years, after the Manchu family swept the soil according to the day, the next thing to do was to paste the shed and paste the Wall with New Year paintings to make the home look new. In the old days, people had two ways to buy New Year paintings, one was to sell New Year paintings in the Annual Collection, and the other was to buy new year paintings in big cities such as Shengjing (now Shenyang), Jilin City (now Jilin City), Bukui (now Qiqihar), and as soon as they entered the Waxing Moon, there were small traders selling New Year paintings with baggage, shouting as they walked: "Paintings come, buy paintings!" ”
New Year paintings are posted during the New Year and decorated with walls of woolen paper or Koryo paper paste. Contains the auspicious meaning of blessing the New Year's Jubilee. Because the New Year painting is pasted once a year for the New Year, it is named "New Year Painting". Most of the early New Year paintings were woodblock chromatic New Year paintings, most of which came from Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Hebei. Later, machine-printed offset New Year paintings appeared in large numbers. The content has also changed from woodblock prints such as "Qilin Sending Son", "More than One Year in a Row", "Four Seasons of Flowers", "Five Sons Dengke", etc., to "Zhang Sheng and Cui Yingying", "Xu Xian and the White Snake", "Ancient Ladies", "Modern Beauty" and other fresh and rich offset Prints with brighter colors and more vivid levels.
As a traditional way of celebrating the New Year, New Year paintings once beautified the environment of Manchu families and brought people the enjoyment of beauty, but now they are gradually drifting away from people's lives, and have gradually become the past memories of the elderly during the New Year.
The Manchu annual custom is "twenty-six, cut pork". That is to say, on this day, people want to kill pigs to prepare for the New Year's pork, if the family does not raise pigs, they have to go to the big market (market) to cut (buy) a piece of pork, and some families and people simply pull back a "half pull partner" (half) pork to prepare for the New Year.
There are many customs of killing pigs in the 26th of the Manchu month, and many people will come to help after killing pigs, and after killing pigs, they naturally invite relatives, friends, and neighbors to eat a big meal. This feast of hospitality, the heart, liver, belly, lungs, and meat of the pig, especially the pork stew with three layers of pork stew, is even more full of oil and shouts "enjoyable". People call it "Eating The Pig" or "Eating the Whole Pig Table".
Pig blood, Manchu will add some salt and other condiments to the blood sausage, after cooking, cut into slices and put in the pork stew sauerkraut taste more beautiful, white meat, blood sausage stew sauerkraut is the Manchu special cuisine, commonly known as "white meat blood sausage". Blood sausage cut into pieces of fine processing of braised, but also Manchu characteristics of ethnic food, because after cooking a piece of blood intestine will bulge out like a small lamp bowl, so people call it "burning lamp bowl".
"Twenty-six, cut pork" is mainly for the New Year to prepare "chews", so the pig's front trough, rear tweezer, pork, pork bones and pig head should be stored for later. Outside the northeast cold house is a natural big refrigerator. The Manchu custom is to stack the pork parts separately in the courtyard, then bury them in clean snow, and then pour some water on them to freeze and freeze them. In this way, you can keep the pork fresh and stored, and you are not afraid of pigs, dogs, rats, weasels and other livestock or animals to come to eat, and you want to eat which piece of meat to open the snow to eat, which is really simple and convenient.
In the early years, people's lives were very hard, so when killing pigs, the plate oil of pig internal organs and some fat meat were put in a pot to be boiled into lard, and stored in a jar. The Manchus call it "big oil" or "meat oil" and keep it until summer when it is eaten with stewed beans, stewed potatoes, or mixed with rhubarb rice. The Manchus would also use pig sewage oil and flour alkali to mash it, and cut it into a fist-sized pig pancreas (lard soap), which was very easy to use to wash clothes or quilt noodles.
The Manchus are a simple and hospitable people, preferring to inspect their own provinces to be hospitable. Therefore, the slaughtering pig will warmly invite his neighbors or relatives of the same Hala (surname) to come and eat meat. You invite me, I invite you, not only the neighborhood relationship is very harmonious, but also makes the village tun early full of New Year's celebration.
The custom of the Manchus is that after killing the Pigs, some pork will be chopped into meat fillings, and then a large amount of dumpling jelly is wrapped with sauerkraut or cabbage filling, in case they are eaten from the first day until the fifteenth day of the first month, and guests can also cook dumplings to entertain guests immediately. This is very convenient, eliminating the need for many tedious tasks such as chopping meat filling, vegetable filling, japanese noodles, and dumplings during the New Year.
"Twenty-seven, slaughter the rooster". The Manchu custom is that on the twenty-seventh day of the 27th lunar month, a few chickens should be slaughtered at the right time, and after the hair is removed and cleaned up, it is buried in the snow like refrigerated pork for backup. Manchu families raise chickens and ducks, because chickens are harmonious with the auspicious and auspicious "Ji" characters, so chickens are indispensable in the family feast of the first "chicken day". The hen still has to keep the eggs to hatch the chicks, so the family kills the roosters at the first day of the new year.
When buying New Year goods in the New Year, the most willing work for adults and children is to "beat the New Year paper". "Playing the New Year paper" is today's "catching up with the New Year". In the early years, people rushed to buy New Year goods, buying white sugar, brown sugar, sugar balls, stove sugar, yellow smoke, noodle alkali, pepper noodles for cooking, large materials and other items, all of which were packed and bundled with large pieces of woolly paper or yellow mounted paper, so people called the purchase of New Year goods called "playing New Year paper".
At the "bottom of the year" (the end of the year), the people of the eight villages in ten miles will rush to the New Year's collection to "beat the New Year paper". Wealthier families would wear thick leather hats, wear big leather hats, hold the written "New Year paper list", drive horses to climb the plow or ox to climb the plow, and take adults and children to go to the New Year's fair and play the New Year paper together, while the poor in the family could only carry the basket and carry the basket and walk forward to the market. Therefore, in the early years of the Manchus, there was a saying: "Poor men rush to the market - leg measurement".
In the past, there were many poor people, but they were busy for a year to buy a little New Year goods, cut a few pounds of meat and weigh two pounds of brown sugar, pull on a few feet of flower cloth, buy some pairs (couplets), New Year paintings, hanging signs, firecrackers, jade flowers, shoes and hats, royal calendars and other New Year goods, which not only have a little New Year atmosphere but also full of expectations for the new year, but also make children happy and happy. As the old folk song sang:
Sugar melon festival stove, the New Year is coming.
The girl wants flowers, and the boy wants cannons.
The old lady wants a new cloth shirt,
The old man asked for a new felt hat.
I remember when I was a child, although my family was poor at home during the New Year, I always had to buy some peanuts, melon seeds, and large sugar balls to eat for thirty nights. What I will never forget the most is the "big mess". The mix is a mixture of preserved fruits, apricots, peaches, golden cakes, melon strips, etc., colorful, sweet and sticky. There is also a kind of mixing melon seeds, hazelnuts, sugar winter melon strips, sugar bowl beans, peanut sticks, walnut sticks, etc. are sold together. Chinese New Year's Eve the night watch, the whole family chooses their favorite variety.
Catch the New Year set "Playing New Year Paper", the little girl will issue cards, jade flowers, flower handkerchiefs, and the little boy will have a cannon fight. There are many kinds of cannon battles called "small whips", the sound is not loud, but the price is also the cheapest; two kicks are two rings, one sound after the flying up to the sky, and then another explosion in the air; the falling cannon is a fall to the ground can be sounded; the box flower is a high-grade fireworks, the box contains more than twenty firecrackers, and after lighting one after another, one after another rushes into the sky.
In the early years, merchant shops would also set off a kind of fireworks called "flag fire". The flag fire, also known as "fire", is shaped like a cannon tied to a 4 or 5-foot long straw, and when lit, it will "whistle" into the sky and burst into the air with a beautiful spark. According to legend, the "flag fire" was the trumpet cannon fired when the Eight Flags soldiers of the Qing Dynasty and Manchuria were deployed, because of its sound in the night sky and colorful sparks, it later became a fireworks fired by the people during the New Year.
When it comes to the twenty-eighth day of the Lunar New Year, the Manchu custom is "twenty-eight, steaming and offering flowers", which is slightly different from the Han custom of "twenty-eight, take the noodles". The custom of the Han people is to steam many steamed steam Chinese New Year's Eve ed steam
Tofu and bean sprouts are the main dishes of the New Year. Large families with large populations make their own tofu, and families with small populations go to tofu factories to buy it. Some are eaten freshly, some are cut into small cubes and stored after oil, and left to cook at any time; some are frozen with delicious frozen tofu. In the early years, soybean sprouts and mung bean sprouts were the main dishes of the Manchu family in winter, and many bean sprouts were born in large tile pots or wooden troughs. Raw bean sprouts are simply blanched in hot water, and when the water is cooled and poured out, you can cover it with a damp cloth and put it in a warm place such as a kangtou or window sill. After that, use water twice a day, and after three or four days the bean sprouts come out and you can eat them. You can stir-fry meat, stir-fry pickles, make soups, or mix cold vegetables and stewed vegetables under hot pot or boiled water.
On the twenty-ninth day of the Waxing Moon, the Annual Custom of the Han People is "Twenty-nine, take the oil away, paste the couplet hot pot wine". It means that the New Year's work has all been busy, the oiled food has been fried once, and the couplet can be rested. The Manchu annual custom is "twenty-nine, paste for fighting". The Manchu people believe in shamanism, there are worships of ancestors and gods of heaven and earth during the New Year, and the incense bucket used by the gods is also called "offering bucket" for the upper offering, so it must be pasted well years ago.
Before the New Year, people have two things that must be done, one is to take a bath, in order to wash away the filth, wash away the ominous, and clean up the New Year. The second is that men shave their heads. The Manchus have an old habit of "shaving your head in the first month of the uncle", so the first month can not shave the head, so people have shaved their heads before the New Year, so there is a saying: "There is no money, shave the head for the New Year."
On the twenty-eighth and ninth days of the Waxing Moon, people are very busy, and women are busy wrapping frozen dumplings, steaming bean buns, and steaming the "offering flowers" used by ancestors to receive gods. In addition to "pasting sheds", "sticking pairs", "sticking spring strips", "sticking hanging sticks", "please door gods", men also have to paste the "incense bucket" used for worshiping heaven and earth, and also erect high lantern poles, and tie an emerald green pine branch to the top of the lamp pole.
During the Chinese New Year, Manchu families erect lantern poles in front of or in the courtyard. There is also a table under the lantern pole, on which there are pastries, dumplings, and fruits. At night, the red lantern is tall, and the Manchus call it "Standing Sky Lantern", which is said to have the ability to exorcise demons and bright and auspicious. In the early years, the tall lantern poles were placed on lamp bowls containing badger oil, bear oil or Suzi oil lit at night, which used to be a tool for conveying information such as peace, danger or attacks by other Hala people between Manchu "Hala" (surname) villages.
The lantern pole is a remnant of the Manchu forest worship, the sacred tree worship, and the sacred pole (Solo pole) worship, which evolved from the shamanism "Tongtian God Tree". The Manchus believe that the tall lantern pole can reach the heaven where the ancestral gods and the gods live, so the lantern poles of each household are as high as possible, so there is a custom of "comparing lamps". The Han people in the northeast are influenced by the Manchus and also erect lantern poles high during the New Year, but their legends have a strong Central Plains Han cultural color.
Legend has it that in the divine and demonic novel "List of Gods", Jiang Ziya was ordered by the primitive heavenly deity to seal the gods, and he did his best to do things seriously and sealed many gods and immortals, and when he finally saw that he had no place of his own, so he had to wander around the gods. On the day of Chinese New Year's Eve, when all the gods had returned to his place, he had nowhere to go, so he had to crouch on the flagpole or lanternpole. Therefore, there is a folk proverb in Kanto: "Everything must be thought out, Jiang Ziya is still squatting on the lantern pole!" ”
According to legend, in order to please Jiang Ziya, who is taboo with the hundred gods, people set up lantern poles on the day of Chinese New Year's Eve, invited them to come to the town house nursing home and set up a small god case to burn incense sacrifices, until after the fifteenth day of the first month, they were withdrawn.
About the author Fucha Baoren: Mr. Fucha Baoren served as the director of the Greening Division of the Parks and Forestry Bureau before his retirement. At present, he holds the following social positions: Jilin Municipal CPPCC Researcher, Visiting Professor of Beihua University, Historical and Cultural Advisor of Shulan Municipal People's Government, Vice President of Jilin Manchu Culture and Economy Promotion Association, Vice President of Jilin Manchu Friendship Association, Director of Jilin Manchu Culture Research Association, Director of Jilin Folklore Society, Director of Jilin Changbaishan Cultural Research Association, Member of Jilin Writers Association, Jilin Taoist Xuandiguan, LingxianFu Restoration Consultant, Secretary General of Jilin City Landscaping Association, etc.
Mr. Fucha Baoren has written many books, especially books on Manchu history and culture, mainly including the series of "Manchu Past Events in the Great Northeast", which is a project for the development of local history resources in Jilin Province. The series of books is about 1.24 million words, and is divided into 5 volumes, including "The History and Culture of the Manchus in the Great Northeast", "The Old Events of the Manchus in the Great Northeast, the Culture of the Manchus in the Northeast", "The Old Affairs of the Manchus in the Great Northeast, the Culture of Slang Culture", "The Old Affairs of the Manchus in the Great Northeast, the Architectural Culture", and "the Old Affairs of the Manchus in the Great Northeast and The Shamanic Culture". Our platform is authorized to publish some articles. Those who wish to purchase this book can contact the author, Mr. Hosa Hohito.
Our platform has published part of "The History and Culture of the Manchus in the Great Northeast", and now Mr. Li has provided the "Manchu Past Events of the Great Northeast and the Culture of the Years", which we will publish one after another.
On February 5, he published "The Fifth Day of the First Lunar Month, the Manchu Sacrifice of the God of Wealth and the Breaking of the Fifth".
On February 6, "Manchu New Year Customs" was published,
On February 7, "The Festival of Manchus Receiving Aunts and Grandmothers" was published.
On February 8, he published "Manchu Ice Lanterns Have a Long Tradition",
On February 9, "Manchu Shaman Sacrifice" was published,
On February 10, he published "Little Snow Spreads over the Mountains, Manchus Are Busy Catching Mink",
On February 11, he published "The Fifteenth Day of the First Month manchu young men and women dancing the hedge aunt dance".
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