A few days ago, when I went to a village in Jiaodong (rushan territory, the specific name is not mentioned for the time being) to visit traditional buildings, I happened to meet an old man who is eighty years old.
The old man is warm and talkative. We talked to each other for a while before we said goodbye to each other.
The place to chat was at a fork in the street in the village. Before saying goodbye, I had already planned to go west next. Unexpectedly, after saying goodbye, the old man's way home was also here. Since we caught up with this coincidence, we restarted the conversation box.
The old man's home was not far from the fork in the road, and he walked to the door of the house with a chat,— a small house. The author looked up, although the roof has been replaced with red tiles, but from the frame can still see the vicissitudes, it should be some years old.
When visiting other villages in Jiaodong in the past, the author has seen many old houses that have been passed down for generations. And this time when I saw the old man's home, I couldn't help but have this association. So he asked him, "Uncle, is this your family's ancestral home?" ”
"No, I bought it later." The old man replied.
"Ah, what about your old mansion?" The author asked again.
"To the younger son." The old man said again.
It is not difficult to hear from the word "little son" that there is more than one son of the old man. So, why did the ancestral house only give it to the younger son? Is there such a special rule of separation of families in the local area?
Under this doubt, the author asked the old man for advice. He also went out of his way to tell the story in detail.
It turned out that the old man had two sons under his knees. According to the common understanding of the people, this means to prepare two suites.
If placed today, these two suites should be prepared at least in the county. However, the old man caught up with the age a little earlier, and the preparation of his son's house in the village can be done.
Fast forward to the time, and soon his eldest son was of marriageable age. At that time, around the beginning of the eighties, the marriage in the countryside basically followed the old rules of "matchmaker's words".
The advantage of the old rules is that "one link is buckled", in layman's terms, it can be forward-looking and can be empty. And the old man took the time according to this rule, first built a new house in the village, and then entrusted the matchmaker, and after the matchmaker agreed, he set a date and methodically arranged the marriage for the eldest son.
In the old man's vision, the marriage process of the younger son should also be like this. However, the plan could not catch up with the change, and before he could start building another new house, the youngest son suddenly came home and told him, "I will be ready to get married in a while." ”
Due to the relatively late birth, the youngest son was almost in the early nineties when he was fit to marry. At that time, even in the countryside, the atmosphere of free love had risen, and he did not need to be introduced by a matchmaker, and he negotiated the object himself.
On the old man's side, when he saw that the younger son usually did not mention the matter of "talking about the media", he did not rush to build a house. Unexpectedly, the latter was in place in one step and directly prepared to get married.
Time is so fast, the house is too late to build, and I can only think of other ways. The old man thought about it again and again, and decided to renovate and paint the ancestral house where he lived, and let it be used as a new house for his younger son. The two of them bought another one in the village – apparently, the new one was much worse than the ancestral house.
In this way, the younger son moved into the ancestral house, and the old man moved into the current cottage.
The story is not complicated, but it is expensive to be true. Similar scenes, in the past, should have been staged in many families; in the future, it may continue to be staged. (Author: Ear Left Moon)