Remember the day of the new month
The author | Fan Yukang
Unconsciously, the "breaking five" has passed, and the next traditional festival Lantern Festival will soon arrive. At this moment, I can't help but recall the memories of watching the song and participating in the song in the first month of my childhood.
In the past, there was a saying: "Lazy people look forward to the holiday, lazy women look forward to the first month" At that time, people's material and spiritual lives were relatively lagging behind, and they could only be improved in the first month. In fact, at that time, regardless of industriousness and laziness, people were looking forward to the first day of the month, and the children were no different.
In the first month, especially the people in the countryside, they not only enjoy the blessing of eating and drinking, but also feast their eyes in terms of making a fuss and watching songs.
Deng Yu Village, in the out of the county town of Da Nan Men is a large population village, in the past, now out of the county town of Yingchun Street south end is still like this. Due to the advantages of geographical location, the red days of the village ushering in the outside song team and troupe began at the beginning of the first month, coupled with the custom of rushing to the temple fair and singing a big drama on the twenty-eighth day of the first month of the village every year (the twenty-eighth day of the first month is the first day of the plague, usually a four-day meeting period, which continues to this day), so it is often after the "second of February" lively atmosphere to slowly get "cooling".
The main venue in the village is bustling with fire on the first day of the new month, depending on the location of the stage. In the early, mid-sixties, and before, it was unfolded in the "Shrine" and the west side of the ancient opera stage opposite. From the late 1960s to the present, it was carried out in the compound of the present-day village committee.
The Yangge team included Wu Yuanlan and Wenhui Hui. The Wuyuanlan (Wushu Team) in Donggou'er (Lanyu and Lecture Hall Area) and the Wenhuihui (Literary and Art Team) in other places must rush to our village to perform for everyone. Because Deng Yu Village is located in the county where the east and south rivers lead to the county seat, the mobile villages and even the surrounding counties, or more distant places, the Yangge team and troupe must come to the fire. Some came on their way to the lantern festival streets (cultural performances and competition performances) in the county town, and some came later. In short, before and after the Lantern Festival, our village is in the climax of the first lunar day.
At that time, there was no ideal means of transportation, and most of the team that went out of the village was on foot. When you go to the village entrance, you will beat the gong and drum and go in to perform, and after the performance, you will come out with the etiquette when you enter the village and then come out to another performance village (point), and some will eat pie rice when they eat, and they will stay overnight in the evening. Whether it is Wu Yuanlan or Wenhui Hui, the performers are all very hard, Wu still wants to be martial, after singing, they still want to sing, and they want to dance, one is not to cope with errands, and the other is not just to earn foreign dry cigarettes (cigarettes). There is no microphone horn or other megaphone, and the actors in Wenhuihui sing a piece of love with an "iron voice" in the cold. There is no hardened field, and the descendants in the Wuyuan Olive roll out of a sweat by "fighting and killing". There are several elderly masters in the village who often stand up and volunteer to "fight the field" and maintain order. When they send off the Yangge team, they will also beat the farewell gong and drum together with the person in charge of the village to the entrance of the village, and when they are separated, the guests and hosts will clasp their hands and greet each other, and wish each other a reunion in the coming year. Among them were the now-deceased Uncle Chen, Uncle Zhang, Uncle Li, Uncle Wang, Uncle Zheng, Uncle Liu and other caring people in the village. The scene of watching and performing is from dawn to sunset every day, and the Yangge team takes one after another, some come and go. When the audience was a little more than enough, the elderly chatted and talked about family affairs, agricultural affairs, past events, exhibition of new things... Young people smash oil, throw walnuts, jump in circles, kick the shuttlecock... The people in the whole village who can go outdoors are immersed in the joyful and lively red-hot moon day under the background of the fire.
Each yangge team is equipped with a special person who stands in front of the post, which is calculated in advance according to the itinerary. If you eat, it is to go to the farmer's house to eat pie rice, breakfast and dinner is generally qianqian rice soup oil cake, lunch is generally meat soup noodle oil cake. In short, the staple food of the First Moon Day is mainly cakes (eating fried cakes and eating oil cakes without being able to eat fried cakes), which symbolizes the high life of the year. If you stay, after the night show is completed, you are sent to sleep in a livable and warm farmer's house by gender.
Above is the situation of the song team, which came to perform on the stage, that is, the troupe, and the hometown people called the stage play. The stage play is not much the same as the string singing team, and the time to stay in the performance for one or two days, three or five days varies. I remember that in the year of the performance of the ancient opera stage in the "shrine", the village was not yet electrified at that time, and when the night scene was performed, the lighting relied on oil lamps and gas lamps. Gas lamps are more advanced than oil lamps and have high brightness. After singing the afternoon play, we must inquire about what lighting is used in the night scene of this troupe, if it is lit with oil lamps, it will be disappointed, and if it is a palm gas lamp, it will be happy. However, after the gas lamp is lit, it is often willing to fail, and the brightness of the lighting restored after repair is not as fast as that of the oil lamp, which shows its own advantages and disadvantages. At the end of the 1960s, the village was electrified, and the random village built a large stage in the compound of the current village committee, and since then, public places such as celebrations and meetings, as well as public places such as the red and lively days of the new month, have been moved here accordingly.
In the "Divine Room" ancient opera stage by lighting oil lamps, palm gas lamps to watch the night drama, one year on the first day of the first month, Hebei Province's Xiangxian Xiaweiliang Village Xiaoluozi Theater Troupe performed in my village, originally scheduled to be four days and seven plays were sung, just in the face of the sky is not beautiful, sleet has been falling non-stop. In the next few days, the village received sincere hospitality, the troupe performed free of charge, and fans outside the village watched with umbrellas. As a result, the village and the troupe enhanced their friendship and formed an "old love". After the big stage was built by electricity, the troupe and the troupe of taipingzhuang village in its neighboring village went to our village for several consecutive years, traveling thousands of miles, at any cost and far away from the cold weather, rushed to our village to perform for the masses, and was once rumored to be a good story of "joining hands to water the flowers of friendship" in ten miles and eight townships.
On the first day of the first month of 1968, I had just entered the age of thirteen. Due to the closure of the "Cultural Revolution" schools, uncle Li, the director of the village poverty alleviation association who has always been responsible, vacated two east rooms of his family and organized a group of primary school students near us. Instead, it is to learn cultural knowledge during the day, rehearse literary and artistic programs at night, and after an autumn and winter festival, everyone walks on the right path, and they all gain a lot. More importantly, one laid the foundation for the resumption of classes and schools in the future, and the other created the preliminary conditions for the formation of a yangge team on the first day of the first month to carry out literary and artistic propaganda.
The programs we rehearsed well include", "The Old Couple Learns Mao's Selection", "Chairman Mao's Quotations and Songs", "Spring Breeze Blows Flowers Everywhere", "Series of Allegro Books", "Hero Wang Erxiao" and so on. With the support and arrangement of Uncle Li, our nearly twenty-member Yangge team held up a red flag on the morning of the ninth day of the first lunar month and beat a set of gongs and drums and happily left the village. As the youngest member of this song team, I joined the village's First Moon Sky Song Team for the first time and so far, as an actor and participated in the performance.
According to Uncle Li's plan, our performance out of the village has both a timetable and a road map. It took four days to go deep into the village more than thirty times, and the journey was about 100 miles. That is, east to Huzigou Village, west to Qiaojiagou Village, north to Xiakou Nanshe Village, south along the South Mahui Village to Chongkuo Village (the number of days should not be too long, one is to rush back to the village before the Lantern Festival to participate in the cheering performance, and the other is afraid that a few of us are cold, affected, and homesick).
On the first night we stayed in Chongkuo Village, had dinner before performing, and then went to bed. But on this night, two things happened because of the performance, one was a momentary embarrassment, and the other was unforgettable.
I played the ghost soldier in the "Hero King Ii Xiao" play, and when about three-quarters of the plot was performed, the "ghost soldier" was ambushed by the "Eighth Route Army" team. The leader (actor) of the "Devil Scouts" accidentally said the line "The Eighth Route Army is coming, we are quickly hiding" as "The Eighth Route Army is coming, we surrender quickly." Hearing him read the wrong line, a few of us raised our guns and knelt down to surrender. In this way, "the war is avoided" and the plot cannot be further advanced. I had to leave the scene in embarrassment. Suddenly, a young man wearing a red armband appeared in the audience, and he shouted with his arms raised: "The Deng Yu family is really hard, and the devils kneel when they see the eighth road"! For a while, cheers, applause, cheers rang out... How nice is this interactive scene! In today's fashionable words: the audience in Chongkuo Village is great!
Another thing was that the Song Team of Chongku Village arranged to perform before us that night, and we took the opportunity to watch the program while paying attention to the parents of the learners. When we see that the actors of the negative characters in the Chongku village repertoire are all whitewashed, which is more "sinister and reactionary" performance effect, we will take it as a lesson. When I couldn't get the incense powder for a while, I quickly did things quickly, got on the soil method, and found lime powder to apply to my face. In this way, each performance was smeared with lime powder on the face, and after three days, it seriously violated the skin. Puffiness, dry cracks, and symptoms of tinea ass, resulting in skin poisoning on the face, itching, pain, suffocation, and ugliness are unbearable. It took two or three months for the treatment to be relieved. During this period, I often secretly thought that if I was disfigured at a young age, I would not even be able to find a "scar daughter-in-law" when I grew up. Once, I woke up crying from sleep and muttered, "I will never be an 'enemy' again, or the Eighth Route Army!"
After I said this dream, along with the cycle of years and seasons, with the renewal of the first month and day, I gradually understood and grew up. Since then, I have never applied lime powder to my face, and my mother-in-law who married after the right age is not a "scar daughter-in-law". And I will always hate the Devil Scouts and always worship the Eighth Army Road!
Wind and rain send spring home, flying snow welcomes spring arrival. Another brand new new day, the spring of the Year of the Tiger has arrived. Recalling the previous first lunar day, the atrial memory was compiled into a written text. I believe that in a few years, the same full of sense of gain, happiness, and security will be written with passion under the title of "The First Moon Day in Memory" (continued) as the title!
(Written in Yuci on the eighth day of the first lunar month of the lunar calendar)
About the Author
Fan Yukang, screen name: Wei Bin, a member of the Yushe County Writers Association, has been engaged in forestry ecological grassroots work for more than 40 years, and has won the title of "Five Good Workers" of the Provincial Federation of Trade Unions and the Provincial Forestry Department. After retirement, he still pays attention to social development, respects the cause of greening, likes to write, and loves life.
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