Wang Jianfu | Prose: Tickle Tickle

Tickle tickle

□ Wang Jianfu

Life was hard as a child, my father was tired of life, and he rarely joked with us children. So the only time the old man let me guess the puzzle, I never forgot to get old. The riddle is: here and here, there and there, yes and no, no, no, no, yes, here The bottom line is: tickle.

This riddle is too graphic! One person tickles another person, because it is not itching on their own body, scratching the place, it is always difficult to be precise. The scratched person itched anxiously, and kept issuing instructions to correct the orientation, which was the vernacular of the puzzle above. Finally, when the tickling man's fingernails hit that itchy spot, the long-awaited scratched man was relieved, "Oops! A sound, that comfort, that pain, Wuhan people said, "more comfortable than drinking soup"!

Now that society is progressing and the conditions are getting better and better, it seems like a distant thing to talk to young children about tickling. Because under normal circumstances, people's bodies should not be itchy. If the body is itchy, it is mostly because of lack of hygiene, no timely bathing, or skin problems, such as ringworm and allergies. When we were young, we had itchy bodies and needed help to scratch them, mostly in the winter. Because there is no condition to bathe frequently, the skin cannot be cleaned in time. At that time, it was also itchy in the summer, because there was no fan, and there was no air conditioning, and it was easy to get prickly. However, there are fewer clothes to wear in the summer, and the itch can generally be solved by itself.

Although itching on the body is abnormal, scratching the itch is a very enjoyable thing. I remember when I was young, as long as my body itched, I was like a small piglet, arching into my mother's arms and letting my mother tickle. In winter, my mother would always put her hands on the stove and roast them before putting her hands into my collar. Mother tickled without me saying "here, here, there." Mother's gentle hand, like eyes, first gently touched on the back, touched, touched, touched a small knot or small fire mouth, and then gently picked it up, oh that is comfortable, hehehehehehe As for summer, I once said in "Hankou, Childhood, Summer": "Between dreams and dreams, my mother is shaking a fan for us." Lying on the reddened bamboo bed, letting the mother's soft hands gently grasp the prickly heat on the back, we will soon fall into a sweet sleep. ”

Alas, my mother's gentle hands!

Mother tickling is the most comfortable. But mothers won't always be around us. It is not convenient to ask someone to help scratch it. Even if you have the right person to scratch for you, it is not necessarily fun. Only by tickling yourself can you scratch the most accurate place with the most appropriate force. But tickling yourself is difficult. Scratching is usually scratching the back, wearing more clothes in winter, and the hand bend is not in place. If you tickle yourself, there will always be a piece of your back that your fingers can't reach. At this time, it is necessary to use the help of tickling.

Tickles came to our country from India and were only used as tickling instruments at the beginning. The ancient book says that it "has the shape of a finger at the end of the handle to show that the hand cannot reach it, and scratch it can be as desired", so the scientific name is "Ruyi", and tickling is just its common name. Some places in the north also call it "Old Man Le". It seems that the itch that does not pay attention to hygiene has been mostly men since ancient times, otherwise why not call it "wife music"? The word "ruyi" comes from the Indian Sanskrit word for "Anaru". When it came to our country from India, I have not examined. It is said that the earliest record of Ruyi is the Jin Dynasty. Book of Jin. The biography of Wang Dun says that Sun Quan once got a ruyi and often held it in his hand to play with. Based on this, I reckon he also belongs to the group of people who do not bathe very often. After each drink, he liked to taste Cao Cao's music house: "Old Ji Futuo, determined to be in a thousand miles, martyrs in their twilight years, strong heart." "While chanting, I beat the spittoon with ruyi, knocking the edge of the spittoon to the point!

Later, when preaching to the faithful, there were wise monks who were afraid of forgetting the words, so they wrote the main points of the scriptures on Ruyi and held Ruyi to preach the scriptures and used them to use the teleprompters. So you can still see statues of bodhisattvas holding ruyi in some temples. Later, officials went to the court, had something to play the emperor, also learned from the monk, wrote the main points on ruyi, held the above dynasty, as a "hajj", both auspicious meaning, but also ready to forget, once the body itched, you can also temporarily rescue emergency, this is called a multi-purpose instrument.

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, people's so-called "ruyi" basically completely parted ways with the itching used to tickle and became a kind of auspicious artifact for play. Ruyi's shape is also very different from tickling, and the finger-like handle is changed to Xiangyun, Baye, and Ganoderma lucidum, indicating auspiciousness and happiness. Especially in the Qing Dynasty, the wind of playing ruyi was the most. The emperor's concubines, princes and ministers, the study living room, the bedroom boudoir, will be placed as desired. The materials for making ruyi are also becoming more and more expensive, such as gold, jade, enamel, agarwood, and rosewood. Because it was precious, it became a reward for the imperial court and a gift given by officials and businessmen.

I think that once Ruyi becomes a mascot and a precious gift, it will return to the practical value of tickling. Because it is also "tickling"! Imagine if your boss likes the rosewood-encrusted jadeite ruyi, which you bought with heavy gold and gave it to him with both hands, will he be like scratching an itch, "more comfortable than drinking soup"?!

This is called mental tickling, and popularly speaking, it is called throwing in its favor. The weakness of human nature determines that people like to tickle - whether it is itchy on the skin or itchy on the spirit. Don't talk about people, dogs enjoy tickling. In the row of bungalows outside my yard lived a single old lady. In the winter sun, she basked in the sun, and her Shiba Inu also lay beside her in the sun. The old lady gently squeezed Shiba Inu's back with one hand, and Shiba Inu squinted his eyes and smiled (Shiba Inu actually laughs!). ), did not move, that expression, "more comfortable than drinking soup"!

Bribing others with money and property is against the law, harming others and harming oneself, and it is not advisable. But there was some tickling, and I thought I could learn it. For example, people get along with people, those with high emotional intelligence, no matter what they say or do, will "scratch the itch", which can make people comfortable and give people a feeling of scratching the itch. He doesn't need people to tell him, "Here, here, there." As soon as he opened his mouth, he could speak into people's hearts; as soon as he started, he could do things in a hurry. Being friends or doing things with such a master is really "more comfortable than drinking soup"!

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Author Profile |

Wang Jianfu, a native of Wuhan, is a retired employee of the enterprise. When he was young, he published a number of novels and stories in publications such as "Yangtze River Literature and Art", "Cuckoo", "Chinese Story", and "Scattered Flowers". He has won the Silver Award of the First Stars Award of the Ministry of Culture and the Outstanding Social Literature Award of the Provincial Department of Culture. After retirement, I picked up my pen again and wrote some prose essays to entertain myself. He has published a collection of essays, "Taste in the World" and "Spring Flowers and Autumn Picks".

【Source: Yellowstone Literature】

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