The 2nd Issue Of Spiritual Maps Recommended reading | Hao Suisui: Northern Shaanxi Scattered Chapters

Northern Shaanxi Scattered Chapters

Author: Hao Suisui

Temple fair

A temple fair is as beautiful as a mule and horse club. Mule and horse clubs are generally located in county towns or towns, and temple fairs are held in places where there are large and small temples. The Mule And Horse Club is the lowest level of trade, not only for mules and horses, but also for a variety of snacks and daily necessities. The temple fair is invited to sing opera or book to perform the big gods and buddhas enshrined in the temple, and most of the people who rush to the temple are not good men and women. There are three plays a day at the temple fair, and the most lively one is the one at night. These three scenes are the main reasons that attract many people to the temple fair.

The Dragon King Temple across the river will usher in three days of drama in the middle of summer every year, with qin cavity, northern Shaanxi province, and local drama in Shanxi. The people in the village love to see the Qin Cavity and the Taoist feelings, if they invite the Shanxi opera, many villagers are not happy, saying that the president is too bold, and even dares to invite the cheap drama from other places to the Dragon King, so he is not afraid of God's offense. The ancient adage that "there are gods on the head" has become the evidence for some people to be energetic and powerful. That said, but everyone still has to see it, although it is not completely understood, but as long as you see the singers in costumes on the stage running around in good spirits, you will be satisfied.

The bustle of the temple fair is a great temptation. The cultural phenomenon formed by this huge temptation, drowned in the noise of the theater and the dust, it originates from people's temporary liberation and emotional release in the imprisonment of dull life, and is the most direct spiritual entertainment from the people, its expression is painful, and the cultural enjoyment it brings is also sufficient. The creators and beneficiaries of this culture are both on and off the stage, so the temple fair must become a prominent point of the height of rural culture and continue for many years.

To delve into this cultural background is to walk into the temple fair itself. The high stage establishes a connection between reality and illusion. The illusions on the stage are all strange distances that seem to be close to the real people in front of the stage and behind the scenes, but they are actually thousands of miles away.

And the group in the three states is the most real is the backstage, that is, behind the scenes. The black-pressed audience in front of the stage fluctuated in emotion as the plot progressed on the stage. In a highly symbolic drama, the formulaic performance of the actors and the emotional intervention of the audience form an emotional scene on and offstage with fake and real. The masters of this scene are the people in the background, and once they walk on the stage, they are like a stick, inserted into the audience like a waterhole, and when they stir, they ripple and push out in a circle.

The age structure of the audience is completely the epitome of the overall people of a country, from this phenomenon, when people's entertainment space is concentrated on the stage, specific cultural life is also officially opened here, the crowd under the stage is obviously an emotional audience, with the development of the plot, these people who have great differences in age have a regular unity in expression.

I like to watch dramas, and I prefer to lift the curtain backstage and watch the actors after stepping down.

Temple fairs in northern Shaanxi generally start from the Qingming Festival, and then follow a series of lunar festivals such as the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar. In the middle of summer, when the arid land needs rain, singing to the Dragon King Temple becomes the climax of the temple fair throughout the year.

One summer day a few years ago, I crossed the Black Mountain Temple Tunnel and went to a village in Xinzhai River to watch a play. Catching up with the second scene of the day, at the top of the stage hung a banner with the name of a troupe in Shanxi. Because of the heat, there were not many people watching the play under the stage, and the small traders who sold incense paper, watermelon, cold noodles, pancakes, and stuffing filled the stage, and the dust that was lifted up fell all over their bodies, and the white cloth covering the stall also fell a layer of dust.

It is very interesting to lift the canvas behind the stage to watch the actors make up and remove their makeup, and there are always a bunch of people who don't go to the front desk to watch the play and run to the backstage. In the summer heat, the canvas wrapped in the background is too tight, and the singer lifts a canvas to let the wind blow in. The internal affairs in the background are also completely bright.

I saw a majestic female general in front of the stage turn to the backstage. She took off her hat and sat down on the big suitcase when a white puppy jumped into her arms. The woman hugged the puppy and touched its little head with her hand, and the puppy stuck out her tongue and licked the back of the woman's hand. The puppy is originally white but has some more variegated fur, and looks very dirty, such as the dirt on the back that seems to be smoked black and sticky to the grain of rice, which obviously does not match the name of the pet. But who dares to say that in this woman's eyes, this puppy is not a pet?

At this time, a rapid gong and drum sounded in the front desk, the woman quickly stood up and put on her hat and shouted and rushed from the backstage to the stage, and the puppy jumped down and fell into the gap between the two large wooden boxes, and her eyes were clearly looking at the long row of costumes, hats, beards, and large knives hanging on the shelf.

In less than three minutes, the woman crossed her waist and held a knife in the other, shouted a "chase" word, and dragged a long tail note from the front desk to the backstage. The puppy jumped into the woman's arms again. The woman sitting on the large wooden box drank a bottle of mineral water, the puppy raised her head and opened her mouth to drink, and the woman poured the water from the bottle into the puppy's mouth like a "oil seller". The puppy shook its head after swallowing the water, and there was a little mercury scattered on the woman's face, and the woman wiped it off with the back of her hand.

The woman was in her thirties, sitting backstage and communicating little language with others, and her silence contained a huge inner world, and the puppy was probably the only creature in her world. In our impression, the people who sing at the temple fairs in the countryside and the storytellers are people who have no good encounters in real life, and their fate may be at this moment, or even in this life, experiencing unsatisfactory experiences. And this woman's seemingly indifferent expression in the background can't hide her enthusiasm for life. Large wooden boxes, costumes, puppies, mineral water, etc. are all props of her life, and these props fill her inner world. And the puppy is, in her eyes, it is a carrier of some kind of sustenance. Material things may not be the most important thing for her.

There are many people at the temple fair, and there are also miscellaneous. There was a lot of noise on and off the stage, and the human voices mixed with the sounds of gongs and drums, erhu flutes, etc., which was the sound fusion of the village event that was artificially gathered together. Coordination is not important, what is important is that the performance on the stage and the noise under the stage can find the point of convergence in the collision of non-interference, and quickly blend, emit a sound that the gods cannot make, and find a suitable expression for the various moods on and off the stage.

The existence of the temple fair is clearly a inheritance of an ancient culture. The temple is the carrier of religious belief, and the venue is the carrier of folk culture, and when the two are combined, their significance is more extensive, as if human affairs are omnipotent and omnipotent here. As a kind of activity to express the worship of the gods and Buddhas, the temple festival is the most solemn and ritualistic way. The three-day temple fair gathered the surrounding people in one place, zhang's parents and wang family were short, and the trivial matters of chai rice, oil and salt life were all moved to the temple fair, and socializing became another great pleasure of the temple fair. The temple fair has also become the place with the strongest smell of fireworks in the world.

The second eldest who likes to kill pigs is not a butcher who is an expert, but he likes to slaughter pigs and sheep for people outside the village during the New Year's Festival. The advantage is to get a piece of blood-soaked knife groove meat, or a pair of sheep into the water. But the old man's technique of killing pigs is really a bit poor, one year in the waxing moon to a family in a neighboring village to kill pigs, several strong post-life death pressed on the pig, even if you do not use a knife to kill, will be crushed to death. The second elder stabbed the pig in the neck, and the pig shouted. The second elder took out a knife and wiped the blood on the knife on the pig's mouth, and then lit a pot of dry smoke and sat on the pig and smoked leisurely, he said that he never returned the knife when he killed the pig, and took his life with a knife. As soon as the words fell, the pig rolled over and rushed down the road. The second brother was thrown to the ground, and he stood up and shouted: Chase! A group of people shouted and chased the pig with blood dripping from its neck to the road. Terrified, the pigs jumped off the road in panic, and below it was an icy river beach. The pig staggered forward on the ice, and the pig chasers did not dare to jump directly, and detoured to the river beach. The second brother picked up a stone and threw it at the pig, the pig continued to run forward with a cry, a group of people followed the example of the second brother and smashed the stone at the pig, and soon the pig fell to the ground. Some say the pig was not killed, but was exhausted; others say it was stoned. The faceless old man said to the master embarrassedly, and asked someone to clean up this dead pig for you. The master said, then you don't want that piece of knife groove meat? The second elder said helplessly, no face to want. After saying that, he turned around and left.

The next year, at the Guandi Temple Festival in the village, the president said that the second elder killed too many people, and went to the temple fair to repent once.

The liveliness of the temple fair did not diminish at all, and the man possessed by the gods and immortals in the crowd, wrapped in a red cloth on his head, holding a large knife in his hand, passed through the crowd with words in his mouth and came to the main hall of the Guandi Temple. Under the guidance of the president, the second elder knelt in front of the tall statue of Emperor Guan, and the man wrapped in red cloth waved a knife on the second elder's head, humming vaguely in his mouth the words kill, pardon, and release. Then the red cloth man took a sip of a bottle of white wine and sprayed it on the head of the second elder. The hall is full of wine, the second who has never drunk alcohol smells a strong smell of wine is a little uncomfortable, he deviates from the wine that is blown over, the red cloth man directly spits a mouthful of wine on the head of the second elder, the second helplessly wiped the wine flowing on his face with his hand, squinted at the red cloth man, and then buried his head. The second brother was a little dizzy by the wine, and the rising red cloth man drank a bottle of white wine with a spray, about half a pound, and the red cloth man who looked a little drunk was shaking, the words in his mouth were vague, and the tail note was very long. The second brother could not hold on any longer, and he fell to the ground with a bone, at this time the red cloth man also fell down softly.

As an important form of existence of rural culture, the temple fair is indeed liked and supported by the people of the seven villages and eight townships. Temples are everywhere, almost every village. Where there is a temple, there are people, and where there are people, there is a temple. The size of the temple does not matter, what is important is that people with grievances, people with desires can come here to pray and expect, to be able to comfort and encourage themselves. The temple's existence is extensive and seems omnipotent. The temple fair is regarded as an extension and sublimation of the meaning of the temple, and the silent temple and the gods enshrined in the temple, in the hope of the people, capture the will of all sentient beings in the noisy temple fair, in order to better sympathize with all sentient beings.

I was in the middle of the temple fair in the north, and I saw all kinds of people walking at the temple fair, rising up a gust of yellow earth, and gradually enveloping the people who came and went. Human-led temple fairs and other organizations enrich their content, expand their fields, and enhance their functions around the rural culture with historical roots.

The temple fair is a place where people gather, and it is also a place where people reveal many of their emotions and thoughts.

freeze

In the middle of winter after a heavy snowfall, the weather is even colder. Snow hung from the branches of the trees and piled a foot thick on the dirt road, and life still meandered under the snow-covered river. The winter in northern Shaanxi is the season when cold days are connected one after another to freeze the high sky and thick soil.

It's freezing!

This frozen word is a verb that continues to intensify, and once it is spoken, it will be more and more frozen, the weather will become harder and harder, and the snow will fall heavier and heavier.

Heavy snow may be more profound in the north, especially for the water-scarce northern Shaanxi, which is a real good climate for the soil. Therefore, the existence of heavy snow as a kind of water, even if it changes into a flower blooming in the sky, in the eyes of the old man, it is just flying water, not a poem or a song in the eyes of young people, and it will not be related to the wind and snow moon.

The old man in the village only washes his face once a year, and when the first snow falls in the winter, he stands in the yard and picks up a bunch of snow and rubs it on his face a few times, even if it is the most important grooming cleaning of the year. His wife said you've disgusted me in your life. The old man replied that the boss Wang in the back ditch had only washed his face twice in his life, the first time was on the day of marriage, and the second time was the one after death. The wife said no to him, turned and walked away.

The farthest place the old man went was the county seat. In the winter, the people of northern Shaanxi basically stopped all agricultural work, and the people were idle, and the number of times they went to the county town together was also more. The reason why the old man loves to go to the county town is that he can go to the lower river beach to eat a bowl of haggis, a pancake, a bowl of mung bean cold powder, if you are open-minded, and then add an oil spin, this trip to the county town will be complete.

After a snowfall, the weather was very cold, so cold that people had to put their hands in their sleeves when they walked, and the cat hurried forward with his waist down. Old Man zi and a few people in the village want to go to the county seat to visit. They will not take the whole road, but will choose a part of the waterway without curves. The waterway in winter is an icy road, and many people choose to take the water and land road that alternates between the ice road and the highway, which can bypass the extra detours on the highway. On the ice, not only a few people such as lao zi are walking, but many people who go to the county town will take this relatively short water and land road.

People who walk on the road can walk smoothly and orderly, while walking on ice roads is very different. The ice surface is very slippery, and from time to time someone slips down to cause the laughter of everyone, and this laughter seems to be frozen and cannot be dispersed on the ice for a long time. The children were paddling the ice cart and slipping a cigarette past them, and the old man and other people would slide forward while skating on the ice at the waist, while several people held hands and slid forward together. The fun of walking like this is not just taking shortcuts, but also in the joy of a few people falling and getting up. Northern Shaanxi people as a whole are introverted and deep, and few people express their emotions in public. And walking on the ice surface similar to the game, everyone can't help but reveal the joy in their hearts, all accompanied by the pain of being hit on the hard ice when they fall. And such pain and happiness has always been a parallel life experience of people in northern Shaanxi.

Of course, this is the living state of the people of northern Shaanxi in the last century.

After an hour's walk, the old men would cross an old town lane built in the Ming Dynasty in the county town — the only street in the county town. The old town lane leading to the street is called Crow Lane, the wall of the city on the left side is basically well preserved, and the complex of several old cave dwellings high above is said to be a very old county court, while the one hanging on the edge of the city wall only leaves a brick house with a square mouth of one foot in size, which is said to be a cell at that time, which held many murderers. The child passed by here, and couldn't help but look up, afraid that the murderer with green face and fangs would jump out of the opening of the room. It is said that the infant survival rate of the people in the old era was low, and after dying, they were sent to this alley, and they were eaten here by groups of crows, so they were named Crow Alley. It is auspicious for babies to be eaten by crows, which is somewhat similar to tibetan heavenly burials. In northern Shaanxi, the definition of "person" has an age limit, and under twelve years old cannot be called a complete person, because the soul is incomplete. Incomplete soul means that this person's body is weak, and the understanding of a person in the eyes of the people of northern Shaanxi is not his body, but the perfection of his soul. Therefore, once a person under the age of twelve dies, he cannot be buried according to the etiquette of an adult. Since it cannot be buried, it is natural to send it to a remote ravine and let the birds and animals eat it, and if it is not eaten within three days of sending it out, it will bring a shadow to the family - the child who died prematurely did not reincarnate, and the incomplete soul is still entangled with the relatives at home. If it is eaten quickly, it is auspicious, indicating that the child has been reincarnated.

The old man quickly entered the street through Crow Alley. The cold on the street was the cold emanating from the clusters of black cotton jackets, and the thick white heat emanating from the two rows of dilapidated tile houses east of Cross Street. The craftsmen who squated on Cross Street selling buckwheat pancakes and mung bean cold powder did not shout, they squatted in a row, with a half-foot-long dry smoke pot in their mouths, and waited for the diners with clear noses. The most eye-catching person is the person who beats the oil spin (mille-feuille) in the stove more than half a person high, and he seems to be very blessed, he will never be frozen on a cold day, and the heat emitted from the stove can make the whole street feel warm. He skillfully wrestled, flew, and tossed the dough, magically taking out golden oil swirls from the stove and placing them neatly on wooden plates on the stove, greatly tempting the people who came and went.

Once the oil swirling stove is burned, there will be many people gathered here throughout the day, although few people buy the oil swirl to eat, but the people who play the oil spin will not mind. This group of people with runny noses and drooling were very happy to talk about the past and the present together.

The Haggis Restaurant is located in the tile house on the right side of Cross Street. The steaming heat of the tile room, the boiling of people, and the urgent and intensive sound of lamb smelling during eating are enough to make everyone unable to resist the temptation of this delicious taste. A bowl of haggis contains cabbage, potato flour, sheep's blood and head and hoof offal, and the red chili oil floats on the bowl noodles, further rendering the delicious taste of this old bowl of haggis.

A few of the old men walked in.

As is customary, they find a place to sit down, and the waiter comes up and skillfully pours a bowl of noodle soup for each person, and then asks whether the large bowl is a small bowl? Fine or stewed? The old man blurted out without thinking: Big bowl. Stewed. This answer also represents everyone.

Fine, is the dialect. This means that this bowl of haggis does not add vermicelli, cabbage and sheep's blood. It's delicious and addictive, but it costs three times as much as stew. Therefore, the average person feels that eating sperm is the practice of not living people, after all, the mother-in-law and aunt dolls in the family are old and young, and a big family can save a few.

The old man consulted with the others, do you want to buy another oil spinner for each person? Several others were a little hesitant. Old Maozi said to buy it, it is not easy to come. Others should not answer. The old man called the waiter and asked him to go out and buy a few oil spins back. When he finished eating and paid for it, the old man paid everyone's oil spinning money together. Everyone's heart was too much to go, and there was gratitude in their eyes. The old man wiped his mouth with his sleeve, waved his arm and said: Go.

They walked out, put their hands over their ears and said they were freezing. Old Man zi and the others walked quickly to the stove where the oil swirled and stood down to warm up. Some people say that this winter has been freezing bone stones. Some people say that the wind blows directly into the meat.

It is very frozen. From time to time, there are visible and invisible winds blowing. The cold resistance of black cotton clothes no longer seems to be the only barrier against cold. Sports have become a consensus formed by everyone to resist the cold. The old man said, let's eat a bowl of pancakes and go home, when we go home, we will get hot under the foot pieces, and this fever will not be cold. Everyone understands the principle of people warming their legs and dogs warming their mouths.

A swing sits on a wooden stool in front of the pancake stand, and several people each have a bowl of pancakes and then drink a bowl of cold soup. Cold soup is a pancake soup with garlic paste, rice vinegar essence, and sesame seeds in cold water. Eating pancakes and cold soup in the cold world is incredible in the eyes of others, but here is a food tradition, even in the snow, people here will squat in the snow to eat pancakes and cold powder.

Eating mung bean cold powder in the snow, the cold wind outside the body whizzing, a bowl of cold powder in the body, a cold shiver, the upper and lower teeth beating for a while, the bones and flesh in the middle tightened and expanded, and the instinctive power of the highly resistant person instantly exploded, this masochistic way of eating has no lack of fun and excitement, bringing everyone the prominence of the mental level of willpower.

It's time to go home after eating the pancakes. A few people from the old man who returned from the same way had eaten and drunk enough and were in a good mood. They hummed and sang The Heavenly Tour and braved a hot sweat to return to the village.

The heavens and the earth are still, the nights are long and the days are short, and more frost is the wind that blows in the invisible night; the sound of the wind is the endorsement of freezing, and the louder it is, the more severe the frost outside the layer of window paper. The more severe the freeze, the more you can freeze the boulders in the ditch, you can freeze the mountains to open the mouth, and you can make some birds and beasts freeze to death in the snow. This is the winter in northern Shaanxi. It was the mother soil on which my parents and I lived, and it was here that we integrated our lives into our daily natural environment.

Wind and snow always come in a certain night. A layer of pasted window paper can not stop the vastness outside the window, in the snow with the wind spread on the ground to write the lyrical cold, the entire Loess Plateau is no longer the traditional color spread, but this is given a romantic color of white, crystal white. This glowing white is a harsh cold, a cold that thick clothes can't cover, and a cold that the human body temperature is difficult to resist.

Push the door and come out, it is a white expanse of land, really clean. Everything on the undulating earth becomes a slowly moving white line, outlining the snow-covered landscape in a thick silhouette. The dirt road that connects the village is the one that curves and stretches out, and what comes back is the bone-chilling cold, the iron cold that drips into ice.

Even in shiveringly freezing weather, the village kids in leaky cotton coats still like to run in the snow. The wire in the yard to dry clothes was like a tendon in winter, tightening the cold of this weather. The children were making a fuss and deliberately licked the wire with their tongues, and the tongues were immediately stuck to the wire. The wire was like an open mouth biting its tongue and not letting go, and quickly exhaled a few deep breaths of hot air to melt the glue-like ice that was frozen between the tongue and the wire. A bunch of kids repeatedly played games like this with their tongues and wires, which made the cold weather a little warmer. The adults standing by laughed at the scene and said that the dolls were unattended and the dogs licked the bowls.

The leaking cotton coat could not block the cold wind of Qingzi. The cuffs and knees of the children's cotton coats had been pressed several layers of patches, but there were still old cotton wool exposed, and the wind penetrated through the cracks of the patches. But the children running in the wind seemed to have nothing to do with this winter, and the sound of frolicking resisted the cold wind outside. They glided over the frozen river, weaving through the white expanse of snow and playing snowballballs. The part of the cuff that was already shiny was a hard layer of snot knotted together, a mark of winter, a mark of cold, and adults said that it could all be rubbed with matches.

A heavy snow seems to bring the whole mountain village back to ancient times. Modern civilizations such as telephone poles and wires, asphalt roads and machines have all retreated to heavy snow. Only man and the sky are dynamic, people go out to sweep snow like an ant squirming on the white land, and the snowflakes flying in the sky are like dense petals blooming in the sky. A snow that makes the earth and the sky pristine. This heavy snow makes everything in the world like punctuation in ancient texts, and through the hook of people into beautiful words.

In such a weather where such a frozen and long-haired dog will bury its sharp mouth deep under its body, human wisdom is reflected. By wearing cotton clothes and ear covers, burning hot kang and drinking boiled water to keep warm, you can survive the cold weather of three or nine, four nine, and harmen barking dogs.

The sky is very frozen, and no matter how frozen it is, it cannot stop the lyrical heart of the people of northern Shaanxi. Poetry is a kind of psychological activity hidden in the depths, and for the people of northern Shaanxi who live in harsh natural conditions, Xintianyou is the best way to express poetic feelings. The enthusiasm and kindness of the people of northern Shaanxi are often reflected in a first letter to the sky. If a strange passerby is frozen and whizzing through the village, there will be villagers who come forward and say, go back to the kiln to drink a bowl of hot water and then go on the road. In their eyes, there are two kinds of people, one is a relative, and the other is a passerby. People of both identities are people they see as treasures. Therefore, even if it is a strange passerby, as long as the difficulties encountered are detected, every enthusiastic northern Shaanxi person will lend a helping hand.

This kind of more realistic poetry always glimpses from specific things, while that kind of more romantic poetry always brings people comfort from the soul. For example, when it was snowing heavily, the old man would look up and say that he smelled the snow. As soon as this sentence was uttered, the whole sky was fragrant.

(This article is an excerpt)

concentrate:

This article was published in Yanhe, Issue 2, 2022

Spirit Map column

The illustrations in this article are from the Internet