Fu Hu welcomes spring
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Also said year (2)
The twenty-third day of the Waxing Moon, commonly known as the lunar new year, also known as the twenty-fourth lunar month is a small year. Although the time is slightly different, the customs and etiquette are similar. The small year, as the name suggests, is the opposite of the "big year" of the Spring Festival. On the day of the New Year, the most important ritual of the traditional folklore of Greater China is to worship the god of Vesta. Vesta God, also known as Stove King, is the god of food in ancient Chinese myths and legends, that is, in charge of human diet. We grew up cross-legged or nestled in the hot kang head to listen to many legends and stories told by our fathers are mostly about the god of Vesta, our god of vesta is called stove fire grandma, according to legend is the precious daughter of the queen mother's mother, stationed in the folk to ensure the three meals a day of thousands of households, every year only on the day of the small year to return to the Heavenly Palace mother's home for a rest, and then return to the world on the day of Chinese New Year's Eve. Stove fire Grandma returned to her mother's home mainly to the Jade Emperor and the Queen Mother Niangniang to report their own inspection of the people's small and small trivia, so people must prepare delicacies on this day to send the Stove God to heaven, in order to pray that she will say a good word for herself in front of the Queen Mother,Mother,And return to the world with good rewards and well-being to continue to protect the well-being of the family in the four seasons, this custom has been simplified to the pure New Year, and the little year of our childhood contains a lot of customs, this day is the busiest day of the Waxing Moon, from six o'clock in the morning to the busy darkness, It was not until the night when I was tired and fell on the kang that it was officially over.
Clean up
According to the rules of the hometown Ofoni, the twenty-third day of the Waxing Moon is the day of the great cleaning, and every day the cleaning, sacrifice, and food are carried out simultaneously, and the time is pressing to get up early, and the family must work together to successfully complete all the tasks. So on this day we are always busy with our heads dirty, four feet to the sky, cracked hands and feet, tired into old dogs.
Mother is a very fine person, although the farm size yard households from all over the world, but everyone's customs have twenty-three cleaning habits, but most of the family meaning can be, but the parents' requirements for my family are always very high, the annual cleaning must ensure that it is spotless, leaving no dead ends, everywhere clean and polished. That day, from six o'clock in the morning before dawn, we were pulled out of the quilt by our mother in our dreams, and then in the rush of fire began to clean up. Everyone moved all the furniture to the yard for the first time, the house was adobe, and the horns and horns were always piled up with a lot of dust throughout the year, rats and bugs were also rampant, the newspaper-paste roof walls were covered with dust and spider webs, and some places had been crumbling over the year. I remember that there is a kind of bug called shoe sole board, is the kind of bug I am most afraid of, the back is a gray-white shell, under the shell grows countless claws, they will usually be a bunch of snails behind the horns or wallpaper, as long as they are frightened, they will quickly flee around, every time I see me always cry wolf howl all over the house, feel that they will drill into the pants leg to scratch everywhere, still think of these bugs are still itchy and heart palpitations, and later learned that the scientific name of this bug is the earth dragon. After the furniture was moved to the yard, we began to divide the work, the fourth sister who worked the most spilled put a plastic bag on her head, took a grappling hook or a hoe to tear off the newspaper on the roof and the wall, I admired the courage of the fourth sister the most, she was never afraid of all kinds of strange insects of different colors, either with a broom to beat wildly, or two feet crazy stampede, as long as the bugs she saw, almost none of them were spared from crackling one by one violently, and then used the broom to sweep the dust off the wall. Then stand on a stool with a thin broom tied with a rag to wipe the wall one by one, and finally sprinkle water on the room, and then use the broom to sweep out all the garbage on the ground, and the cleaning of the house is complete. The next step is the fine work, I from the small hands and feet of the work liso, thunder can not move the task is to wipe the glass, in the rapid alternating rotation of wet towels and dry newspaper pieces of clean polished glass presented in front of everyone, brother hands and feet stupid can only do straight work, that is, to chop wood for us to carry water to boil water, so that the steaming boiling water warm cold hands to death. The paste of the wall was processed by the sisters with flour, and the third sister put a stack of newspapers on the board and then used a brush to evenly coat the paste one by one, and then handed it to the fourth sister standing on the stool, and the fourth sister began to paste against the wall. My mother took a large basin of hot water to scrub the furniture, kitchen utensils, and bedding placed in the yard one by one, and when the wall stopped, we returned the cleaned furniture, kitchen utensils, and bedding one by one. In the evening, the cypress branches and vinegar soup ordered by our father will make the aromatherapy and disinfection work complete at one time, and a clean and fragrant home will be presented in front of our eyes.
After the cleaning of the house, we began to "clean up ourselves", and after the cleaning of the house, we were all miserable, gray-headed, only two eyes fluttering, and the courtyard was full of sounds of chasing and teasing each other. Because my mother is Jonny's "three-compartment hair", she asked us to grow long hair since she was a child, so every time we wash our hair is a very annoying thing. Henan and Shandong girls are "ermaozi" short hair is very washable. In those days we all washed our hair with washing powder, our mother would boil soap horn water to rinse our hair, soap horn washed hair as smooth and shiny as satin, and then I remember having bee flower shampoo, a big jar, a pink blue paste, fragrant, that smell accompanied us through the whole teenager, the sisters generally washed each other's hair, and then soaked in a large iron bucket to bathe, the final prologue was that the mother rubbed us all over with a pig pancreas, and then washed us down from the neck several times with a large copper spoon full of warm water, at this time, the personal " The clean-up" is done.
Small New Year's meal
When we were cleaning up, my father was already cleaning up twenty-three pig heads in the yard, one of the specialties of the little year was the pancake with pork head meat, my father used a red iron rod to burn the hair on the pig's head clean, and the yard was filled with the smell of stinky burnt hair, and we always did not know its smell because of the expectation of food. After the pig's head is boiled, the pig's head should be cleaned with lye water over and over again, until the pig's head oil is bright and yellow, and then put it into a large pot in the courtyard for brine. I am a well-known hungry cat, but compared to the fourth sister I am still a little inferior, she always because she can't eat the food, she cried, and shouted: "No one give me, I am hungry to death, hungry to death..." The hungry insects cultivated as a child have never left her body, and they have been living in her body for decades to maintain an inseparable love, which has also become the laughing material for us to laugh at her dinner. To be honest, I was actually more hungry than her, but because of my father's preference, I was always able to sneak around and use a lot of snacks to relieve my addiction. Twenty-three pig heads will generally cook quickly under the boiling of the fire, because impatient we always take turns to add firewood to the bottom of the pot, use hollow iron pipes to blow the fire desperately, and sometimes even stuff the ignited oil pine into the bottom of the pot to make the fire gush, the meat aroma gradually spread in the yard, and dinner is getting closer and closer. After washing, the sisters would go to the kitchen like an electric shock and start cooking twenty-three dishes, they could always magically conjure up the dishes we liked in that time of food shortage, and the mother was ready to make pancakes, and cut a round cake with a round enamel plate on the rolled out thin as a cicada wing, the cake was very thin and transparent, our meal was very good, and my mother made at least a hundred cakes to satisfy our desire to eat. Flaming cake is a technical work, when the fire must be mastered, the pot should be fast, turn the cake even faster, put into the pot for tens of seconds the cake will blow out a lot of small bubbles, and then turn over for a few seconds to start the pot, if it is slow, it will be burned. A round and slippery pancake in my mother's hands and feet are stacked with bamboo baskets, and when night falls, the table in the hall house has been placed with fragrant pig heads and pancakes, my father will always prepare a lot of candy and snacks for me, the hungry cats, I am always eager to guard the pot by the side of the dish to wash vegetables, peel onions, garlic, watch my sisters put plates of dishes on the table, waiting for the end of the father's sacrifice to start a hearty food journey.
Worship the god Vesta
The sacrifice of our family's small year is very solemn, and after the cleaning, my father began to prepare for the sacrifice. Twenty-three stove fire Grandma is to use horses and delicacies to send, the horse not only to be radiant but also to saddle complete, I am a master of painting horses for many years in the family, to say that the master is because the template is very good, the family has a well-preserved Xu Beihong's eight Juntu, that is the old paintings hung in the hall house in the early years, and later smoked yellow became a template for painting horses, generally with a thinner white paper on the template to draw, the stove horse to paint two, one is the twenty-third of the wax moon to send the stove fire Grandma back to the Heavenly Palace, the other is from the twenty-third on the stove platform to provide for the offering, Wait until Chinese New Year's Eve pick her up and take her home. Draw a good horse, but also paint a saddle, reins, paste on the stove, light the lamp, burn incense, but also put grain in the bowl, meaning to let the horse eat a full of good hurry, and the cooked pig's head, cake, fried seven plates and eight bowls are enshrined on the stove, and paste a pair: "Heaven says good things, return to the palace to descend auspicious", horizontal criticism is the couplet of "the head of the family", the mother also has to smear sugar on the mouth of the picture of the stove fire, hoping that she will return to the Heavenly Palace to pay more respect for sweet words and sweet words and more auspicious wishes from the Jade Emperor and the Queen Mother's mother. When everything was ready, the father went to the incense lamp to make vinegar soup, that is, the red round stone was placed on the cecilia, held in the basin, Ren Baizhi lit the aroma overflowing, but also kept pouring vinegar on the burning red stone, the vinegar soup basin to turn the big and small corners of the home, including the corner of the yard, the edge of the pigsty, the incense of cypress and vinegar drifted everywhere, the purpose is to dispel the plague miasma at home, looking forward to the next year the family has no disease, health and health. The same sacrificial things should also be placed in the hall house, praying for the joy of the family god, the happiness of the stove fire grandmother, and the peace and smoothness of the home. When all this was over, I picked up the firecrackers I had prepared earlier on the bamboo poles, and the crackling of the firecrackers was the trumpet that sent the stove fire to my mother's house, my father burned the stove horse in front of the stove, and I always looked at the burned stove horse on my back, fantasizing that she rode on the horse I painted and flew away from the beautiful scenery of the Heavenly Palace. With the sound of my mother's shouting, the family dinner of our twenty-three began. Don't say anything about eating, it must be full of oil, belly rolling, full of joy, father is slightly drunk, the family sings continuously, my must-play song "Little Frog" will definitely shine on the scene, looking forward to my father giving us small money to relieve hunger, that night we always fell asleep in delicious and joyful hearts.
There is a folk custom in the hometown, the woman who returns to the mother-in-law's house must return to the in-laws' house before twenty-three, even if she and the in-laws have a grievance of not having a stomach, she can only return to the in-laws' house, if the girl eats twenty-three pig's head meat in the mother's house, she will grow an ugly pig face and be laughed at by the neighbors, of course, this is the traditional folk custom, we are already a generation of reform and opening up, there is not so much cumbersome attention, so that I have been married for more than twenty years and have been living in the mother's house for twenty-three. Oh, this is not the reason why I am getting old fast, it is really difficult to say.
Big laundry
Twenty-three great sweeps of the twenty-four five we can not move the iron is the big laundry. Although the mother comes from the countryside, but the grandfather moved from the city to the countryside because of the turmoil, and the grandfather went out to do business all year round, so the size of the family is very exquisite, the mother continued the clean and tidy family style, always all the clothes and bedding are washed, the washing project is huge, the task is arduous can be imagined, sometimes it takes two or three days to finish.
At that time, every household did not have a washing machine, so the clothes piled up like mountains were all done by hand by the sisters, and the laundry days were full of sisters lying on the washing board and rubbing the sound of salsa... (I remember that the washing machine at home was bought in 1990, and the tap water was only connected in 2005), and the sisters could not straighten up until the afternoon. Although parents have jobs, but the farm is located in Dengga Town belongs to the countryside, before this draft is all shoulder to shoulder, because the father's shop received three or four apprentices from the hometown, so the usual home water is apprentices to the river to pick, the New Year when the apprentices generally have to pick at least a dozen picks, meet the apprentices back to their hometown for the New Year, the sisters can only pick their own, my task is generally to split firewood and boil water, boil a lot of boiling water in a large pot with a diameter of one meter and five, let the sisters wash in warm water, But because there is too much water for rinsing, no matter how cold the weather is, all the clothes are rinsed by the river. Waxing moon twenty-four five is generally into nine days, cold frost, ice and snow, cold wind, the Wow River is basically frozen, we go to the laundry are with stones to smash the ice surface, put the clothes into the small hole in the ice surface in the inside, the bone cold air straight into the bone slit, people can't help shivering, winter cold wind laundry, a while the hand will be frozen like carrots red, the whole finger will be feverish because of the blood, do not feel cold at all, but once stopped the hand will drill the pain of the heart, occasionally we jump up in pain and scream. When we got home, our mother always rubbed our hands quickly, waiting until the fingers slowly regained consciousness, and then let us slip into the hot quilt on the kang for a while, and the hands would slowly return to their original state. Washing clean clothes to the home back is also a very troublesome thing, from the river to the home about a mile, are picked with buckets and large back basket back, clothes because not dried so the back basket has been leaking, until the sisters at home ass eggs wet mess, shoes are also wet, pants into a hard ice board, walking up to the sound, thighs are frozen numb. Although the laundry is tired enough, we never feel tired, because in addition to being tired, it is also full of the joy of growing up and the expectation of the New Year... The pace of the year is getting closer and closer.
Lick the stones
In addition to the busy preparation for the New Year, there is also the naughty I sprinkle on the ice, usually when the sisters wash by the river, I play a game of licking stones on the side, and the most interesting thing about the winter farm is the icy and snowy river beach. The children who have a winter vacation are playing there, we always play some original heart-pounding games, the most exciting thing is to lick the stones, in the cold three or nine days the frozen stones by the river will be taken to the tongue to lick, and then quickly leave at the moment of sticking, it is really a technical job, if you take too slow the stone will stick to the tongue and can't pull it down, I have seen the stone sticky and can't pull down The ghost crying wolf howling bloody scene, which is also one of the projects that the little partner is more daring, although the raw can be extremely interesting, And we who are stubborn by nature are always happy to do it. Every time the sisters saw me playing, they always scolded me fiercely, "The incense ass, the incense ass is about to be removed, be careful that the tongue is frozen off..." The river chased me to grab the stone, worried that my tongue would be ripped off, but the naughty I always did not think so, every time I saw them chasing after me, I fled, and then stumbled along the cobblestone river into the forest by the river to hide behind the dirt bag in the sand willow forest, peeking far away, seeing them looking everywhere for me in a hurry, the sisters could not catch me and scolded and grinned back to the river to continue washing clothes, When I was a child, I always scoffed at my sisters' worries, and now I think of it as sweet flesh and blood affection. I always saw my sisters washing their clothes and getting ready to go home before running back to them, at this moment they were afraid of coming home too late, my mother scolded me and took me home, on the road at most it was painless scolding, for me, it was just the nagging of the old monk chanting, I never paid attention to it.
Concussion
Winter games seem to be inseparable from the river and ice rink, in the waxing moon, the ice rink is a good time for us to skate wildly, at that time the children did not have any toys, nature is our play paradise, the children's most hilarious is to meet on the ice to skate. At that time, there were no tools, only hand in hand into a row of skating, if one person fell down, it must be a collective fall, either four feet to the sky with golden flowers, or fell to the ground ghost crying wolf howl, the scene was really unbearable, nose tears blurred, but after a while, we still brought injuries to the battle, the laughter resounded on the ice.
I remember a few times after a lot of wrestling headaches, vomiting at night, according to the current parlance of concussions, but there was no concept in that era, and all children thrived in concussions again and again. Because our parents, who had been working for a long day, fell asleep, our vomiting and pain had to go hand in hand. Now think, each farm child is estimated to have countless times of concussion experience, but now we are living well, unlike the current children slightly fell on the fracture and disability, really thanks to that special era, the busyness of parents and the difficulty of life let us inadvertently train a healthy and lean body, but also let us harvest the freedom and happiness of unrestrained flight between heaven and earth, but also left countless memories and dreams, the only regret is that now I sometimes have a stubborn temper, This will not be the aftermath of countless concussions in childhood!
Do New Year goods
On the twenty-sixth and seventh of the Waxing Moon, the New Year goods on the market are gradually enriched, because there are 792 mines and the Diebu Forestry Bureau, so the New Year goods in the Diebu Market are very complete, miscellaneous, dazzling, shopping is my happiest time, every time at this time, I will happily carry the back basket, butt toss and toss behind my father. Chicken, duck and fish meat, melon seeds and candies, vegetables and fruits, couplet door gods, lantern New Year paintings... My father purchased everything and had no flaws. Because my father opened a hardware shop after retirement and did some mountain antique business, the family's economic conditions were relatively good. Coupled with the father's bold personality, enthusiastic and generous, so the vendors in the market saw his father always enthusiastically shouting, when turning a street, our big bags, small baskets and baskets were bulging out of place. Although it is only two or three kilometers to go home, I never know tiredness, because I can enjoy snacks in advance of the New Year on the way.
The New Year goods can not be completed once, the first time to do a large New Year goods, wait until the evening parents will put open to check, the next day to add some small items and bits and pieces. Every time we do New Year goods, we always scramble to go, not only to meet the visual impact of New Year goods, but more importantly, on the way home, we can always meet the mouth blessing, because when we get home, all the New Year goods are locked in the warehouse by our mothers, and we can only smack our mouths and look at the door and sigh. Two or three days of preparation, the New Year goods are basically complete, and the rest is the eyes waiting for the arrival of the year...
About the Author
Lai Ruixiang, born in 1974, Zhuoni, Tibetan, Secretary of the Party Committee of Gannan Prefecture People's Hospital.
Editor/Dolmacao Review/Tao Xiaoqi He Xiayan
Editor-in-Charge/Yuan Maorun General Review/Qi Zhengming
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