Children, hours, years, memories
Text/Song Jizong
The pace of the years is hurried, too hurried, too late to wave to the last year, the new year is over.
I don't want the joy of the New Year to hide the past, and I don't want the fireworks of the New Year to cover everything. How many stories and memories of the past are worth reminiscing.
New Year's Day seems to be far away in the impression, and there is not even too much extravagance. In the busy life, in the hurried years, the taste of the year is getting weaker and weaker. The most nostalgic thing is the childhood year, although it is a long memory, but it is still so fresh, so yearning.
When I was a child, I loved the winter wrapped in silver because it heralded the long-awaited year coming soon. For rural dolls, the year of hope is to be able to eat delicious food that they usually can't eat, wear a new dress, carry a string of firecrackers in their pockets, steal a box of foreign fires at home, and go outside to play with their friends for a day. When I came home after dark, I had the smell of gunpowder on my hands and even on my body. Perhaps, this is the taste of childhood?
What is the taste of the New Year in childhood? For the hometown people, it is the big red lantern hanging high in the courtyard; the fiery red Spring Festival, which is the friendly greeting of the father and the villagers who say to each other when they meet: "Happy New Year"...
The taste of the new year is the call of the parents; it is the reunion dinner that the mother makes before and after the busyness. The taste of the year is a feeling, a kind of inheritance; it is the taste of home.
The taste of childhood is intriguing. As the saying goes: After the eighth year is the year. Fathers and fellow villagers who have been busy for a year can finally take a short rest for a few days, and they all have a complex in their hearts: the New Year. Needless to say, on the day of Chinese New Year's Eve, my father, like other uncles in the village, took brisk steps to carry water for the family, clean the courtyard, tie lanterns, and paste couplets. And the mother is even more busy, in the morning after the stove, after eating the Akita noodle oil residue churning dough, she kneaded the dough scooping oil, fried twist flowers and colorful oil fruits, as if the New Year was her own business. Whenever I eat the sweet and crispy little oil fruits fried by my mother, especially the hand-rolled noodles at dusk Chinese New Year's Eve and a pot of fragrant pork bones in the night, a wave of warmth and happiness surges in my heart.
The taste of the New Year in childhood is in a series of festive New Year paintings. The New Year painting is a symbol of auspiciousness and good wishes, pinning the wishes of fathers and fellow villagers for the smooth wind and rain and the happiness of the family. Therefore, the New Year painting is also one of the New Year goods that people buy, and on the thirtieth day, the father and mother will put the purchased New Year painting on the wall of the house in a dignified manner. Looking at my parents' pious and serious appearance, I felt that they were not pasting New Year paintings, but praying for happiness in the coming year. After the New Year paintings are pasted, the low caves are brightly lit up, making the family feel the joy and warmth of the New Year.
At that time, the New Year paintings sold in the store were not extensive, almost all of them were revolutionary model plays and paintings such as "Fighting heaven and earth". No matter what kind of paintings, it is also dazzling to see; it also satisfies the good wishes of fathers and fellow villagers to celebrate the New Year, and those paintings and years build a bridge of joy and peace and wish for a happy life. From those paintings, I learned about the heroic deeds of revolutionary martyrs and the fighting spirit of modern people who have changed the world and the earth. The figures in the New Year paintings were plumped up in my eyes and brought a lot of joy to my childhood.
The taste of childhood is full of fiery red spring leagues. Chinese New Year's Eve on this day, every family has to paste the Spring Festival, and every year at this time, the people who can write brush characters in the village have become "fragrant food". At that time, the Spring League was not like the finished products sold now, all handwritten, and it didn't matter if the words were written well or not, as long as there were no typos. The content of Chunlian is basically up-to-date with the times, such as:
"Red hearts grasp the revolution with the Party,
Fear of rushing to promote production"
Banner: "Agricultural Village"
"The evergreen vine of the people's commune,
Poor and lower-middle peasants sunflower"
Banner: "One Heart for the Common Good".
I remember that one Chinese New Year's Eve day, my father was particularly busy, so he asked me to take the red paper and go to my uncle to write the Spring League. After my uncle had written the other doors, when he was writing the gate link, he looked up and thought about it and said, "Your father is a model worker of our brigade, and the gate league wrote: 'Spring is warm and blossoming is more energetic than energetic, leaping into the sound of striving for advancement'."
At that time, there were not many fathers and fellow villagers who knew how to write and write, and there were jokes about sticking to Chunlian, although there was no joke like "Trough Head Prosperity Sticking Kangbian" said by Sun Cundi in "Picking Up Gold", but some people pasted the upper and lower links backwards; pasted the "lying down" in the main house in the kitchen; pasted the "five grains and fengdeng" in the warehouse in the living room; and pasted the "chicken singing Xiaodan" on the door of the chicken pen on the door of the pigsty. But the fathers and fellow villagers in my hometown are simple and kind croppers, and they are only occasionally used as a seasoning after tea and dinner, and they laugh it off.
The taste of childhood is immersed in the hope of peace and auspiciousness. In the hometown, Chinese New Year's Eve have the habit of vigil, on this night, the elders will buy walnuts, dates, fruit candy and other distribution to each junior, the whole family, young and old, stay up late to keep vigil, to welcome the arrival of the New Year. At the same time, every house must be lit up, which means that the future of the next year is bright; the days are booming. Wait until twelve o'clock in the evening, set off firecrackers, bid farewell to the old and welcome the new, and release the joy of the year. Of course, I am no exception, and I have had enough of the addiction of firing cannons. Looking back now, I don't have a taste in my heart.
The taste of childhood is a custom that has been passed down from generation to generation. There are many customs for the New Year in the hometown, one of which is the early years of the New Year's Day. The winter sky was still gray, and after the big red rooster on the shelf had called five more, my mother got up early to clean up the first meal of the first day of the New Year. I rubbed my eyes and started getting up in new clothes. When I was a child, I loved to wear new clothes, and I preferred to wear new clothes to visit my relatives. After breakfast, my father led me to pay homage to the elders in the village. Every time I went to the house, it was a warm welcome and a warm greeting. After the early years of worship, my pocket was full of fruits, peach pits, red dates, fruit candy and the like.
The first day of the New Year does not sweep the floor. On this day, the house and yard were all a mess of fruit sugar paper, sunflower skins, etc., but they could not be swept away, saying: poor and clean, rich and sloppy, will sweep away the rich. Even if it must be swept, it must be swept from the outside to the inside, and the garbage that is swept together can not be removed until the next day.
Return to my mother's house on the second day of the Chinese New Year. In the hometown, the daughter who marries out cannot celebrate the New Year in her mother's house. There is a saying that goes well: the daughter who marries out spills water. Daughters are the people of the in-laws' family after marriage, and they should be reunited with the in-laws' family after the New Year, if they are in the mother's house for the New Year, it will cause family conflicts, resulting in the situation that the in-laws cannot be reunited for the New Year, and can only wait until the second day of the first year to return to the mother's house to pay homage to their parents.
On the fifth day of the first month of the first month, "break the fifth" and "send the poor". On the fifth day of the first month, the dawn rises early, firecrackers are set off, cleaning, garbage is removed, and the poor are sent away. Then the family opened its doors, burned incense and set off cannons, greeted the god of wealth, and hoped that the new year would be smooth and full of golden bowls. The meal on the fifth day of the first year is to eat dumplings, because the dumplings are flat and round, it is said that like the appearance of the yuanbao, the meaning is that after eating the dumplings of the fifth day of the first year, you will make a lot of money. Hometown people also have the habit of wrapping coins in the dumplings on this day, and whoever eats the dumplings wrapped in coins will make a lot of money this year.
It is forbidden to borrow money to collect debts in the New Year. The older generation does not borrow money for the new year, and borrows money for a year; the debt is not more than a year, and the annual debt is not collected. Because it is the New Year, whether it is borrowing money or accounting, the meaning is not good. Lending money to others for the New Year is equivalent to scattering money to others, which means that you have no money to spend this year. And years ago, there were borrowed other people's money, and at the end of the year, it should be repaid in time, that is to say, it is not difficult to borrow and repay.
Do not shave your head for the New Year. There is a saying in my hometown: "Shave your head in the first month and die uncle one by one." This custom is more important to mothers, often urging adults and children to shave their heads years ago and clean up the old and welcome the new. Otherwise, you will not be able to shave your head until the day of the "Dragon Look Up" on February 2.
There are many customs of the New Year in childhood, almost every day, such as "seven do not go out, eight do not return, go to the ninth to do things" and so on. Customs and habits are basically the same everywhere, and I will not list them all here.
Hometown is a kind of feeling; the taste of the New Year in childhood is worth savoring, and many memories engraved in the heart are always beautiful. At the snap of a finger, the New Year seems to be unable to keep up with the fast pace of the times, and the taste of the Year has faded, but it still releases a strong local atmosphere, releases the good memories of childhood, and the taste of childhood and the feelings of the Year are deeply engraved in the heart. When you recall that time, as if it had only passed yesterday, you will feel that the taste of the year at that time is still there, or so full of enthusiasm and nostalgia.
Lantern Festival 2022
About the Author:
Song Jizong, a native of Pingtouchuan Town, Huining, Gansu, is a member of the Huining County Writers Association. Life motto: Where the footsteps cannot go, the eyes can see; where the eyes cannot see, the state of mind can be reached. When a person has a dream, he can say: where his footsteps cannot go.