Text/Wang Zhenle
The Qingming Festival is one of the four traditional festivals in the mainland, derived from the beliefs and "tomb sacrifice" customs of the ancestors in the pre-Qin period. In ancient times, there were many customs of the Qingming Dynasty, including sweeping tombs, planting willows, walking green, shooting willows, flying kites, swinging and so on. With the transformation of society and the continuation of the years, most of the customs have been drowned in the dust of history, and only the customs of sacrifice and sweeping have been carried forward and given a new connotation of the times. Folk ancestor worship inherits the traditional culture of gratitude and filial piety, the official sacrifice sweeps, the remembrance of the martyrs, the initiative of the patriotic love of the country, and the annual Qingming Xuanyuan Public Sacrifice, which is a solemn declaration of the same roots and ancestors of the descendants of Yanhuang at home and abroad.
In previous years, when my parents were alive, the Qingming Festival was to go home to visit the grave, in our hometown, the first three days of the Qingming Festival were called big cold food, two cold food, small cold food, and going home to sweep the grave was generally on this day of the big cold food. Ancestral grave is four or five miles away from home, located on the bank of the Chao River, parents are old, generally do not participate in the tomb sweeping, I and my wife followed the cousin, cousin to go together, wife, cousin they are as usual in front of the grave to put fruit, snacks, wine pots and other offerings, light paper money, while burning paper while nagging with the relatives underground: Now the times are good, the family is not short of money, do not be reluctant to spend money. After burning the paper money, the cousin took up the iron catalpa to add new soil to several graves, from which direction to add soil, what kind of addition is exquisite, quite ritualistic, I can only stand by and watch, adding new soil means that there are successors, children and grandchildren are prosperous.
After going to the grave, there is also an important activity is to dig wild vegetables, which should also be regarded as a green activity. April Qingming, spring back to the earth, the wind is clear, everything grows, at this time the field is full of vitality, looking around there are many unnamed wildflowers, there are purple, pink, white, simple and elegant, swaying spring wind, the bank of the field ditch is more wild vegetable slopes, there are white artemisia, cabbage, dandelion, noodle vegetables, etc., white artemisia, cabbage mostly. Not much effort, a few people can dig a big bag.
Now the cold food festival, there is no longer the custom of eating "cold food". Back at home, wash some wild vegetables and chop them, and the pork belly that my mother has already fed, and in a few moments, the steaming wild vegetable dumplings will be brought to the table, and the Qingming Festival should also be regarded as a reunion festival. Dumplings are wine, and the more you eat them, the more you have them. My father and cousin and I drank a pot of old wine on dumplings, pushed the cups to change the cups, talked about crops, talked about home, talked about work, aimlessly, chatted and forgot, my mother and wife chose wild vegetables on the side, and inserted a few words from time to time. The steaming of large steamed buns in the large iron pot, the red flames bursting in the hearth, and the warm breath of the whole house, this scene, although the wine is slightly drunk, has long been intoxicated in the affection.
The next morning, after eating my mother's hand-rolled noodles, I took my mother's newly steamed buns and wild vegetables dug up yesterday when I went to the grave, and returned to the small town of Kawaguchi, 40 kilometers away from home. The cycle of the sun and the moon, at that time, every year of Qingming was like this.
In the years that followed, my parents passed away one after another, and for me, the word "home" was called "hometown". The number of Qingming homecoming sacrifices is getting less and less, sometimes going home to sweep the grave, the enthusiasm of my cousins and sisters-in-law is still the same, the link of sweeping the grave is still the same, but I always feel that something is missing, is it the old cow that my parents have called for more than ten years, or the old house that has left too many of my childhood marks? Yes and no.
This year's Qingming Festival, the new crown epidemic is raging. It was impossible to go home to the grave, and in a dazed state, I suddenly remembered that on some nights of the Qingming Festival every year, some old ladies living in the oilfield community brought tributes, found a crossroads, and bowed in the direction of their hometown, paying homage to the ancestors, and sending their condolences. This is perhaps the scenery and folklore unique to our immigrant city of Dongying. In the 1960s and 1970s, with the large-scale development of the Shengli oil field, millions of oil workers covering more than a dozen provinces across the country came to the current Dongying land, where they struggled hard, multiplied and gradually integrated into the fertile land of the Yellow River.
Qingming is close and close, but it is a guest of the world. Most of the first generation of immigrants are already in the ancient years, every holiday, homesick, but the hometown is still faint, the homeland is difficult to return. Qingming festivals, in the direction of the hometown, burn paper to pay tribute, not only to pay tribute to relatives, but also to the strong nostalgia that cannot be returned for decades.
At this moment, I suddenly remembered which Qingming Festivals after the death of my parents, what was missing? Now that I think about it, it is not that there is nothing missing, but more, more memories of a carefree childhood, more attachment to which side of the water and soil, more long thoughts about parents, this may be called nostalgia.
That kind of Qingming Festival, there is no going back!
(Image from the Internet)
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