February 15, 2022 is the fifteenth day of the first lunar month of the Year of Nongyin, coinciding with the Lantern Festival, a traditional festival in the mainland. The first month is the first month of the lunar calendar, the ancients called "night" as "curfew", so the first full moon night of the year on the fifteenth day of the first full moon is called the Lantern Festival. From ancient times to the present, the Lantern Festival has become a favorite theme of literati and inkers because of its important cultural connotations, and the folk culture about the festival can also be seen from various masterpieces.
Moonlit viewing lights
The Tang Dynasty poet Cui Li has a poetry cloud: "Whoever sees the moon can sit idly, where to smell the lamp does not look." Tang Bohu, a talented man of the Ming Dynasty, also said: "There is no moon without lights, and there is no moon that does not entertain people, and there is no moon without lights that is not spring." It can be seen from this that viewing the moon and watching the lanterns is an important custom of the Lantern Festival, and the Lantern Festival is also called the Lantern Festival.
Writer Shen Congwen once told the history of the Lantern Festival in the article "Lights of the Lantern Festival": "The Lantern Festival is mainly in the lantern viewing. Guan Lantern became a system, it seems that it was mentioned in the "Jingchu Chronicle", and the more specific records actually began in the early Tang Dynasty and developed in the Two Song Dynasties, and the source came from the Han Dynasty. The custom of "hanging flower lanterns" during the Lantern Festival has been passed down to this day.
"The fire tree and the silver blossom are combined, and the iron lock of the star bridge is opened." Dark dust goes with the horse, and the bright moon comes one by one. "The Tang Dynasty poet Su Wei's widely circulated poem "The Fifteenth Night of the First Moon" vividly depicts the charming picture of the Lantern Night illuminated and people happily enjoying the moon and traveling." Jinli opened a feast, Lan Hongyan's early years. The colors are far apart, and the light is far away. The stars of Han doubt fell, and the building seemed to hang like a moon. Don't have a thousand golden smiles, come to reflect the nine branches", Lu Zhaolin, one of the four masters of the early Tang Dynasty, wrote a poem "Fifteen Nights to Watch the Lanterns", which wrote the brilliant and colorful Lantern Lights in a unique way, bringing people into the intoxicated wonderland.
"The Lantern Festival is full of hanging lights, and the whole street is like a happy event, fiery and beautiful." Famous old shops have to hang out hundreds of lamps, some are all glass, some are all horns, and some are yarn lamps. Some are of all kinds, and some of them paint all the stories of "Dream of the Red Chamber" or "Water Margin". Sky lanterns are placed in the park and fly into the sky like superstars. Men and women came out to step on the moon, watch the lights, and watch the fireworks. In the article "Spring Festival in Beijing", the writer Lao She described the festive scene of the Beijing Lantern Festival after the founding of New China.
The marquee is a kind of flower lantern. The shape is mostly palace lamp-shaped, because most of the ancient warriors on all sides of the lamp are drawn pictures of ancient warriors riding horses, and when the lamp is turned, it looks like several people are chasing me, so it is called a marquee lamp. The marquee is especially popular with the people, and the writer Zhou Guoping said in the chapter "The Problem of Father and Son" in "Autobiography of My Soul": "When I was in elementary school, my father was only thirty years away, and he still had a lot of fun in life. Every year during the Lantern Festival, he would make a delicate marquee by hand, paint different watercolors on each side of the paper screen, and hang them in the house. As soon as the lights came on, the paper screen spun up, which surprised me. ”
Dragon Dance Lights
The dragon lantern dance is also one of the important folk customs of the Lantern Festival celebration. The earliest dragon dance seen in written records is Zhang Heng's "Xijing Fu" of the Han Dynasty, and the author vividly depicts the dragon dance in the laying out of hundreds of plays. According to the "Book of Sui Music", the "Yellow Dragon Change" similar to the dragon dance performance in the Hundred Plays of the Sui Dynasty Emperor was also very exciting, and the dragon dance was popular in many parts of China. The Chinese nation reveres the dragon and regards the dragon as a symbol of auspiciousness.
"The hometown where I grew up was a small county town with less than 10,000 residents on the edge of western Hunan Province, but the lion and dragon lantern fireworks were very famous in the counties of western Hunan half a century ago." Shen Congwen wrote in the "Shen Congwen Anthology", "From the first to the twelfth day of the first month, it is called "sending lights", but the whole city beats gongs and drums and plays everywhere. During the day, he performed a big gong and drum on the bridge, or hovered up and down on eight or nine square tables; at night, he played with mussel shell essence under the lights, accompanied by fine music. Thirteen to fifteen is called "burning lights", and the main competition turns to the other side to see whose fireworks are outstanding. ”
"Burning the Dragon with Steel" is a large-scale folk activity for the Lantern Festival in Western Hunan Province, and is an important ritual and celebration to pray for smooth winds and rains and abundant grains. The so-called "steel fire fire dragon", that is, the steel fire master ignites the steel flower and lifts the long bamboo clip above his head and violently sprays the dragon's body. In the night sky, orange-red steel flowers rushed out, and the more fierce the sparks, the happier the dragon dancers were.
Ba Jin also mentioned the "burning dragon lantern" when describing the protagonist's Lantern Festival in his work "Home": "On the night of the Lantern Festival, the weather is very good. There were a few shining stars in the sky, a few white clouds, and a full moon embedded in the blue canopy like a jade disk. On this evening, everyone prayed to God as usual, and quickly completed the ceremony. Jue Ying took Jue Qun to the street to watch people burn dragon lanterns. ”
Guess the riddle
Guessing lantern riddles, also known as lantern riddles, is a traditional activity of the Lantern Festival, lantern riddles were first developed from riddles, originating in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The riddle hangs over the lamp for people to guess and shoot, and began in the Southern Song Dynasty.
The Southern Song Dynasty's elaborate "Old Events of Wulin Lamps" records: "Using silk lamps to cut poems, sometimes ridiculing jokes, and painting characters, hidden head hidden language, and old Beijing proverbs, teasing pedestrians." "Lantern Festival, the imperial city never sleeps, the spring night to appreciate the lanterns, the people are miscellaneous, the poetry puzzle book is in the lamp, reflected in the candle, listed in the tongqu, let people guess the degree, so it is called "lantern riddle".
Nowadays, due to the time-consuming and laborious production of flower lanterns, riddles are mostly written on hanging slips of paper. Every Lantern Festival, all places play a riddle of lights, hoping to be joyful and peaceful.
"Guessing the riddle is a lot of thought, and it's a lot of funny." The writer Liang Yusheng once wrote in the anthology that he specifically talked about two riddles: one is that in the early days of the liberation of the mainland, the riddle was "Japanese surrender", guessing ancient celebrities, the riddle was originally "Su Wu", but many people guessed "Qu Yuan". "Original", the atomic bomb also. Some people also use the hat-off box to guess "Li Shimin", which means that Japan surrendered, which is the strength of the people of the world, which is an "old joke".
Send baby lights
Sending child lanterns, referred to as sending lanterns, also known as sending flower lanterns, etc., that is, before the Lantern Festival, the mother's family sends flower lanterns to the newly married daughter's family, or generally relatives and friends send them to the newlywed infertile family, in order to add Ding auspicious signs, because "lamp" and "Ding" are harmonious.
"Our hometown is in Nanhou Street, Fuzhou City. The customs of Fuzhou and the lanterns played by children during the Lantern Festival were all sent by my grandmother's family. The writer Bing Xin mentioned this custom in the article "Long Talk about the New Year". Bing Xin also expressed his proud mood of having three lamps in the text: "Grandma's family gave us five lamps for the four of our sisters and brothers! My brothers were much younger than me, and they were not very good at playing, so I took advantage of it at this time, and I hung a marquee lamp on the wall of the 'Three Heroes Battle Lü Bu', holding a goldfish lamp with moving eyes in one hand, and pulling the rabbit lamp that would walk on the ground with the other hand, feeling very angry. ”
Men's and Women's Stipulates
"The multitudes looked for him a thousand times. Suddenly looking back, the man was there, and the lights were dimmed. The Southern Song Dynasty poet Xin Renjie's "Qingyu Case, Yuan Xi" is a phrase that is popular among the population. On the night of the Lantern Festival, between the lights, young men and women have a surprise encounter after a difficult pursuit. In ancient times, the Lantern Festival provided an opportunity for unmarried men and women to meet each other, and it was also a good time for young men and women to meet their lovers. It can be seen that the Lantern Festival is a festival full of romantic colors.
The Northern Song Dynasty poet Ouyang Xiu's "Birth Chazi New Year's Eve" vividly describes the beauty of the Lantern Night couples meeting: "On New Year's Eve last year, the flower market lights up like day. The moon reaches the head of the willow tip, and the person is about after dusk. ”
Because of this, in contemporary times, many literati also call the Lantern Festival "Valentine's Day". The famous poet Yu Guangzhong said during the Lantern Festival in 2005: "In the West, people's Valentine's Day is February 14, and our Valentine's Day is today." Writer Yu Qiuyu also wrote about the Lantern Festival: "I always thought it was just the end of the year, but I didn't know that there were so many meanings. It's a carnival, it's a day of release, it's a 'Valentine's Day'. ”
Eat the Lantern (Tangyuan)
Lantern Festival, eating Lantern is definitely an important custom that can not be less. Lantern Festival to eat lantern, in the Song Dynasty was quite popular, the earliest Lantern called "floating yuanzi", later called "Lantern", businessmen also called its name "Yuanbao".
"Most of the provinces in China eat the Lantern Festival, but the name practices are different from each other. In the north, it is called the Lantern Festival, and in some places in the south it is called Tangyuan, and there are also called Tang tuan and Yuanzi. The names of the north and south are different, and the methods are different. Mr. Tang Lusun, who calls himself a "hungry person", introduced the difference between the northern Lantern and the southern tangyuan in terms of production and sale in the essay collection "Sour, Sweet, Bitter, Spicy and Salty": "Beiping is not like Shanghai, Nanjing, and Hankou, which have shops selling lanterns, and come with night snacks, and the Lanterns in Beiping are all dumpling shops, tea soup shops set up temporary stalls in front of the shop, and are now sold. The stuffing is divided into hawthorn, date paste, bean paste, black and white sesame seeds, first make the stuffing and freeze it, cut it into large dice pieces, dip the stuffing into the water with a large fence, put it in a large sieve containing glutinous rice flour, wait for the filling to be covered with glutinous rice flour, pour it into the fence and then shake it again, repeat three or two times. Different Lantern fillings, click on red dots, plum blossoms, rigid characters and other marks to identify, even if it is done. The advantage of this Lantern is that the tendons in the mouth are not cracked, and the disadvantage is that the filling is coarse and rough, because of the dry powder, boiled out and a little paste soup. The southern Lantern is to roll out the skin first, put on the filling and then wrap it up and rub it round, so the north is called the Shake Lantern, and the south is called the Bao Lantern, and the reason is here. The Lantern in the south is not only exquisite and smooth with filling, but also the glutinous rice flour is also smooth and smooth, and the northern Lantern is only a sweet one, and the southern Lantern is sweet and salty, and the vegetables and meat are complete. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, everyone who had been to the rear probably ate Lai Tangyuan, which was much smarter than the hand-cranked Lantern of Beiping Lan Yingzhai and Min Meizhai. ”
Whether it is the Lantern Festival or Tangyuan, it is pinned on people's beautiful expectations for guotai and people's security and family reunion.
Source: Guangming Network
Editor: Huang Xinle
Proofreader: Huang Daiming
Review: Chen Tianyong
Propaganda Department of the CPC Lingshan County CPC Committee