Ancient early flavor tangyuan carries homesickness
Chen Yaping kneading tangyuan (Photo by Zhang Jiangyi, a reporter from Xiamen Daily)
On Zhongshan Road in Tong'an District, there is a store called "Yinxiu Tangyuan", which has been in operation for 24 years. The owner, Chen Yaping, took over the "baton" from the elders and passed on the tangyuan making craft.
"Our rice balls are filled with sesame seeds and peanuts. The soup base has four kinds of brown sugar ginger, white sugar clear soup, sweet wine and ice. Chen Yaping introduced. Among them, brown sugar ginger is the "ancient morning flavor" tangyuan, which is also the most popular among customers.
Every day at 5 p.m., the dumplings are sold on time. But Chen Yaping has been busy since noon, "wrapped in filling, rolled into a round ball; boiling underwater pot, and then adding brown sugar ginger soup, a bowl of hot rice balls will come out of the oven." Chen Yaping said.
The Lantern Festival is approaching, and many citizens come to visit, either tasting on the spot or buying home cooking. In addition, this old shop also carries the homesickness of many overseas compatriots, there have been overseas Chinese from Thailand, Malaysia and other places to visit this store, and even some people bought it with tangyuan when they left, took it on the plane, and "packaged" this strong hometown complex to their relatives who are rooted in southern Fujian and overseas.
A handmade lamp is still in the shadow of the hometown
Zhuang Wenjia making lanterns for the Year of the Tiger (Photo by Zhang Jiangyi, a reporter from Xiamen Daily)
Walk through the ancient street, step on the wooden ladder, and come to a second-floor attic on Songbailin Street in Tong'an District, which is the handmade lamp-making studio of Zhuang Wenjia, a lampmaker in Tong'an.
Zhuang Wenjia is the third generation of family lamp makers. His father's name was Zhuang Mingguo, and he was a famous lamp maker in Tong'an. Tong'an literature and history expert Xu Jitong introduced that in addition to being good at making dragon and tiger lamps, Zhuang Mingguo also has a unique skill - making dragon dance lamps. "The dragon dance lamp has a dragon head, a dragon body, and a dragon tail, totaling more than ten parts. In the 1950s, during the Lantern Festival, a group of people and horses would dance along the street with a dragon lantern lit with candles. ”
"Making a lamp requires mastering skills such as bamboo weaving, mounting, painting, calligraphy and painting, and you have to be good at each one." Tong'an literature and history expert Xu Jitong said. Today, the craftsmanship of ancient lanterns has been passed down for hundreds of years.
It is worth mentioning that every year, guests from Singapore, Malaysia and other places will send orders to Zhuang Wenjia. When overseas Chinese build new palaces and temples overseas, they will hang lamps from their hometowns. "Seeing the lamp is like seeing the homeland, and the love of the homeland will always be the lamp in their hearts." Zhuang Wenjia said.
【Related】Why is this year's Lantern Festival 11 days earlier than last year?
Tomorrow is the Lantern Festival, some citizens have found that the same Lantern Festival, this year's Lantern Festival is 11 days earlier than last year, next year's Lantern Festival is 10 days earlier than this year. Why is the Gregorian date of the Lantern Festival late? It turned out that this was caused by the leap month of the lunar calendar.
At present, China uses both the internationally accepted Gregorian calendar (solar calendar) and the traditional lunar (lunar calendar). In order to make the lunar year and the Gregorian calendar year basically correspond, China has adopted the "19 years and 7 leap years" method, that is, adding 7 leap years in the 19 lunar years, that is, adding one month to the leap year.
In this way, if there is no leap month in the previous lunar year, then the Lantern Festival in the next year will be about 11 days earlier than the previous year; if there is a leap month in the previous year's lunar calendar, the Lantern Festival in the next year will be delayed by about 19 days compared with the previous year.
The astronomical calendar shows that for the century, the earliest Lantern Festival is February 4, such as 2061; the latest Lantern Festival is March 5, such as 2015.
(Xiamen Daily reporter Luo Zihong Wu Xiaojing correspondent Xia Haibin)