N Haidu trainee reporter Lin Juan
Haidu reporter Xu Xisi Mao Chaoqing text/photo
Correspondent Zheng Bin
The lantern festival is particularly thick, and it is not more than fifteen years old. The fifteenth day of the first month is the Lantern Festival, also known as the Lantern Festival.
Lantern Festival, Fuzhou's "lantern viewing" custom has a long history. In Liang Kejia's "Chronicle of the Three Mountains", it is recorded: "Shangyuan Lantern Ball. Since Tang Xiantian (712), the state has granted a three-day holiday order. "Fuzhou" Nanhou Street around the lamp market is extremely prosperous", the Ming Dynasty poet Xie Zhaochun (zhào zhè) wrote a pen and ink, so singing the Minshan Temple lamp: "Spring breeze nostalgic hometown, fire trees steaming in the clouds." The month before the Golden Millet Peak, the lights in the Minshan Temple. The incense dust is like fog, and the strange is straight as a rope. Ten years of flat boat dreams, qi chi even failed. ”
It's that year again. Today's Fuzhou, the streets and alleys of the lights swaying, neon lights sprinkled throughout the city, the lantern atmosphere with a variety of flower lanterns spread in the streets and alleys; the lanterns in the market, rice cakes are also very popular, street merchants are in the intensive packaging system, the citizens have stopped to buy...
These days are accompanied by rain and rain, and the clouds are uncertain, but it does not hinder the celebration of the Lantern Festival.
In the wind and rain and in the clouds, all kinds of Lantern Lantern lanterns warmed the spring cold material, making people feast their eyes; all kinds of Lantern delicacies warmed the stomachs of all sentient beings, making people feast on their mouths - a thousand years ago, Fuzhou's Lantern Festival folk customs have been inherited and continued, and the reporter walked into the market to get closer to the people behind the lanterns and food, presenting their bits of ingenuity and happiness.
Inheritance: The memory of the old Fuzhou flower lantern from the grandmother
The index finger of the left hand was glued to the paste, twisted back and forth three or two times, and then glued the cut "petals" to the lantern skeleton, and after a while, the empty skeleton was filled with colorful petals, and a lotus lamp appeared in Xie Shanlin's hand.
Walking into No. 46 Huang Lane in Sanfang Seven Alleys, what comes into view is a string of lotus lights, small red lights, airplane lights... All kinds of flower lanterns, all exude joy and peace. And these lanterns are from the hands of Master Xie Shanlin, a traditional flower lantern craftsman.
Mr. Xie is making flower lanterns
Master Xie said that because "lamp" and "Ding" are harmonious, and "sending lamps" means "Tim Ding", every first to fifteenth day of the first year, grandmothers will go to the street to choose flower lanterns for their daughters or grandchildren and send good wishes.
"Three generations of our family have been making lanterns." Master Xie told reporters that when he was 10 years old, when he saw his grandmother making flower lanterns, he thought it was very interesting to make flower lanterns, and then he followed suit, which has been done for nearly fifty years.
The flower lamps that are ready also need to be hung to dry
Watch: Exquisite craftsmanship is still in vogue
To make handmade traditional flower lanterns, many materials such as paper, cloth, bamboo, and wood are required. "When selecting materials, the paper for making lamps requires white, transparent, and not easy to break, only in this way can it be 'like a clear ice jade pot, refreshing the mind'." Master Xie said.
In the process of talking with the reporter, Master Xie did not stop the work at hand for a moment. Although all kinds of electronic flower lanterns are pouring into the market today, there are still many old citizens who have a special love for traditional flower lanterns. The sheep lamp in front of you is favored by the public.
Sheep flower lanterns represent filial piety
"Sheep are fed on their knees, so Grandma will buy a sheep lamp for her grandson, hoping that they will be filial when they grow up." During the conversation, I saw Master Xie use small scissors to cut the paper bit by bit, and then carefully paste it on the sheep bamboo rack to simulate the shape of wool.
The reporter learned that the selection of materials for flower lanterns, dyeing paper, and brackets... This different process is particularly important, just like this seemingly simple sheep lamp, the production process is extremely cumbersome, often need to spend most of the day's work - to prepare for the lantern, generally from the summer to prepare materials, until the end of the year to basically complete. After the preliminary preparation work is over, the next step is the busiest lighting process.
"Making lanterns requires patience and takes a long time, so many juniors are reluctant to learn." But the flower lanterns that are really made with heart are still very tight. Master Xie said that although it is rainy and the business will be almost bad in the past few days, more than a hundred flower lanterns made a day are still sold out.
Tiger lanterns and traditional lanterns
"Blessing taste": Food warms the stomachs of all sentient beings
"The Lantern embryo is made of glutinous rice flour, the ratio of water and glutinous rice must be well controlled, and only when the proportion is right can we make a non-sticky, chewy Lantern." This is the experience of Aunt Lin who set up a stall next to the Suwei Road Market to do the Lantern Festival.
Traditional rice cake
Every morning when she got up at five o'clock and went out at seven o'clock, Aunt Lin had been making lanterns and rice cakes for twenty years, and she couldn't move. She said that in addition to the fresh selection of fillings for the handmade Lantern, the production process is also very elaborate, especially the process of making the Lantern embryo.
Aunt Lin's rice cakes are very popular among the citizens
Although the sky is not beautiful and there is a light rain, the handmade lanterns and freshly made rice cakes still attract many citizens to buy. Ms. Chen, who just purchased a box of handmade lanterns, told reporters, "In Fuzhou, I will definitely eat this lantern, and the taste of handmade is better!" Ms. Chen said that eating Lantern and rice cakes on the fifteenth day of the first month is an essential "menu" for Fuzhou people.