Wen | Xu Zhijie
The second day of the first month of the second month of the lunar calendar is the folk saying that the dragon rises, and some places are called the Agricultural Festival, the Spring Ploughing Festival, or the Green Dragon Festival, the Spring Dragon Festival, before and after the sting of the twenty-four solar terms. Why do ordinary people call this day the Dragon Head? It should be related to the celestial signs and time orders, stemming from the worship and fear of natural celestial phenomena in ancient times, and is also the prototype of agricultural culture. The dragon refers to the seven stars of the eastern dragon in the twenty-eight houses, and every year in the mid-spring month (the bucket refers to the east), the "dragon star horn" rises from the eastern horizon, and the dragon looks up from this, which means that the dragon has ended the latent state of hibernation, woke up, and will appear on the surface of the earth, revealing the head horn, also refers to hibernation, and the hundred insects have awakened. From the season point of view, the second day of the second month of the lunar calendar is in the three solar terms of rain, sting, and spring equinox, which belongs to mid-spring. The lunar calendar year is divided into twelve months, spring, summer, autumn and winter, every three months is a season, the first month of spring is Mengchun, February is mid-spring, and March is the season of spring. Winter and spring come, the earth recovers, the yang rises, the rain increases, everything is full of things, and the busy spring ploughing begins. Therefore, people regard this day as a good day for the beginning of the new year, praying for the renewal of the earth on earth, the smooth operation of the year.
Folklore that has been passed down for a long time, including some folk taboos, is a reconciliation between man and nature after hundreds of battles, and it is also a corresponding cultural symbol of heaven and man, which was not fabricated by the ancients out of thin air. On such a special and important day as February 2, people everywhere came up with some commemorative activities with their own characteristics, such as shaving the head on The second of February, eating beans, eating flags, filling granaries, and scattering ashes to ward off insect pests in my hometown of Weixian County, Shandong Province, which are very exquisite customs that are still practiced today. The second shaved head of the second of February is attached to the meaning of the dragon's head, like a dragon, lifting its head, soaring into the sky, and the meaning of a new look and starting from the beginning. Of course, it is also related to the custom of Shandong people not shaving their heads during the first month. Some places say that the uncle shaved his head in the first month, and the nephew and the uncle were very close to the uncle in the clan relationship, and with this custom and saying, the nephew of the uncle would never dare to act rashly, for fear that the uncle would know that he would be scolded or even beaten up. In fact, the original meaning of not shaving the head in the first month is not to die uncle, but to "think of the old". It is generally said that every year ago, we should shave our heads, take a bath, clean up, and have a good Year.1 Years later, people have a kind of love for the past year, the appearance of shaving the head a few years ago is already the "old look", and keeping the "old look" is also to keep the past year, which is a thought. Japanese people celebrate the New Year's Day and the New Year is not called "welcoming the new", nor is it called "resigning the old", but it is called "forgetting the new year", which literally seems to have the meaning of forgetting, but in fact it is "not forgetting" and "commemorating", one step and three times back. At the end of each year, Japanese people gather together to hold a "year-end party", and some people borrow wine to reminisce about the past and cry a lot. With water in one garment, Japanese folklore may have drifted across the sea from Shandong. When it was February 2, the dragon looked up, the weather was varied, begged for a good mouth, and flew with the dragon, so the people of Shandong shaved their heads one after another, and the "old appearance" was replaced by a "new look". I think this should be the approximate origin of Shandong people who do not shave their heads in the first month and shave their heads on the second of February.
I have always followed the custom of not cutting hair during the first month. I have three uncles, and my uncle died early and left no impression. How old is the uncle? My mother said that she did not remember very exactly, I met two cousins of my uncle's family who were older than my mother, people were visiting my aunt for the New Year's Festival, and my mother was carrying a large bag to see her niece. It is said that the two cousins should be almost 100 years old this year. The second uncle I remember, so tall, straight, is a rare "tall man" in that era, he also mastered some crafts similar to watching livestock, in the production team or individual to buy livestock to control health, ten miles and eight townships are very popular. I think it has been more than ten years since the death of the second uncle, and his eldest cousin is now in his eighties, and the second uncle is at least a hundred years old if he wants to be. At the end of the year, my third uncle died at the age of 96. On the same day, the third uncle went to the street to bask in the sun and chat after dinner, there was no discomfort, he ate a bun at dinner, he said to sleep, lying on the kang for a while, the cousin went to see when he found that the third uncle had stopped breathing and died. My uncles have all left the world, but I still don't want to break the custom of not cutting hair in the first month, I think that the custom of keeping this for many years is actually a respect and thought for the uncles, whether the uncles are in or out, they will always live in the hearts of the children.
The old family called the fried soybeans the material beans, which may be related to the status of soybeans in the crop. Soybeans are different from wheat, corn, sweet potatoes, millet, sorghum and other crops, the latter collectively referred to as crops, can be used as grain; soybeans and peanuts, sesame, etc. are economic crops, not to eat food, but to be used as oil and other additional work materials. In the hometown, in addition to squeezing oil and making tofu, soybeans are also used to make refined feed for livestock. When the people's communes and production teams were in power, the degree of agricultural mechanization was very low, and large machinery such as tractors were managed by the commune agricultural machinery station, and when the farmers were busy, they took turns to help the villages to cultivate the land, but other agricultural work had to rely on the production team to do it themselves. The production teams raised cattle, horses, donkeys, mules, usually these livestock eat a variety of chopped crop straw, when the farmers need livestock to exert great strength, fried some soybeans added to the hay, increase nutrition, strengthen the body. These soybeans, which are used as feed for livestock, are called feed beans, and feed beans are derived from this. In the era of extreme scarcity of materials, it is very delicious to have beans to eat, so children often secretly go to the breeding shed and run when the breeders are not ready to catch a handful to relieve their hunger.
The origin of eating flags is similar to that of eating beans, because the shape of the flag resembles a small flag, so it is called. Making flags is a door university ask. The flag is made of white noodles, the workmanship and materials are more exquisite, the best white noodles, with eggs and soybean oil, fine salt and noodles, the noodles are kneaded hard but not firm, not astringent, spread into chopsticks thick and thin, cut into chopsticks thick and thin strips, with a fast knife cut into a small flag shape. Let it dry for a while, wait for the flag to harden, put it into an iron pot wiped with linoleum, slowly bake it, and gently stroke it with soft hands, so that each side of the flag can be roasted by the fire, and the smell of the aroma will know that the flag is cooked. Then pour into the sorghum straw made of "boat plate", cool, brilliant golden yellow, like the legendary golden beans blossoming, that is called a beauty. Flag as a kind of food, now is not eaten on the second of February, usually there are old people with bad appetites at home, they will also make flags, let the old people put them in their mouths one by one, chew slowly, and fragrant and nourish the stomach. There is an important point in making the flag, one is that it cannot be mixed with water, and it must be added with a small amount of soybean oil and noodles with eggs. The second is that you need to use soybean oil, but you can't fry it in oil, just gently rub it with linoleum at the bottom of the pan, and the light of the oil can be. Because of these two tricks, the fried flag can be stored for a long time, and the aroma can not be dispersed for a long time, which is a rare delicacy. People who love wine grab a flag in their hand, take a sip of wine and a flag, and they can also shake their heads and hum a small song to enjoy.
There is also a very important activity on this day called filling the granary. Early in the morning, my mother used the firewood ashes under the stove where she had finished her breakfast, painted several granaries in the yard, and put a different kind of grain in each granary, praying that the year when farming was about to begin would be smooth, the grain would be abundant, and the grain warehouse would be full. Building a granary with ash also has the meaning of preventing scourges such as rats from harming grain, because after filling the granary, it is sprinkled with ash, and the mother uses ash to scatter a circle around the yard, and then comes in from the gate and sprinkles it all the way to the pot stove, and the ceremony ends. There is some truth to the matter of scattering ashes, on the second of February, before and after the sting, scorpions and centipedes are very poisonous insects also end hibernation and come to the ground to move. Scorpions and centipedes are aggressive to humans, and once people are stung, they will be painful and unbearable, and in the past when medical conditions were backward, they would even be in danger of life. Whether the scattering of ashes can stop the attack of poisonous insects is uncertain, but as a kind of prayer and supplication, so that the whole family can be safe and secure, I still believe in it.
After living in the city for a long time, some folk customs and old exquisites in the past have become scattered, or even slowly disappeared. But as something left by the ancestors to future generations, even if you don't believe it, you can put it in your heart, stay around, and feel strong and at ease when you are lonely and helpless. Although folklore has the superstitions of the old era, the imprisonment of scientific normlessness, and even the reactionary examples that have been circulated to this day and have appeared with human development, this is the process of the game between man and nature. Human progress is not about making everything clear, but about adapting as much as possible to the new circumstances in which things are constantly changing. That's how our ancestors came to be. Zhu Xi said, "The heart of a gentleman is always in awe", yes and no!