Wen 丨 Li dreamed of waking up
Spring view of Yangcheng (Photo: Li Mengxing)
"There are mountains around Guo under the white, and there are no guests in the Qingming Dynasty who do not miss home." A quarter of the time has passed in 2022, and it is the Qingming Festival in the blink of an eye. Many people are busy returning home to worship their ancestors, and presumably many people have to visit their graves because of the epidemic, so they have to send them in their hearts and pay tribute at home. Qingming, half sorrow, half joy. Sadly, the old man is not there, only incense chats to comfort and tosi; the joy is that the weather is clear, walking with nature, the grass is long and the warblers are flying, the flowers are red and willowy, and they are also interesting. Therefore, throughout the ages, there have been many poems, essays, and paintings about Qingming, and I think that everyone's moods and thoughts are similar even if they span thousands of years of time and space.
In addition to du mu's "The rain is everywhere during the Qingming Dynasty, and the pedestrians on the road want to break their souls", Han Hong's "Spring City is everywhere flying flowers, cold food east wind royal willow slope", Song Zhiqing's "The old garden is broken in the intestine, day and night wicker new", Zhang Ji's "Try wumen peeping at the county, there are new smoke in several places in the Qingming", Huang Tingjian's "Festive Qingming peach and plum smile, no field Aratsuka only worries", Yang Wanli's "Spring breeze in the grass, the new year is not there", Cheng Hao's "Mo Cijiu wine is very persuaded, only afraid of the wind and flowers are red", Chen Zilong's "Swallows do not come to the pavilion to return, Willow silk to the east wind today" and so on are popular sentences. The sorrows of the past and the admiration for the new birth of spring can all be glimpsed from the words of the ancients.
Recalling my childhood Qingming, every year is the golden season of "if you go to Jiangnan to catch the spring, don't live in the spring". However, I can't understand the sudden reticence of the adults during the period before and after the tomb sweep, but it is a special permission to run away and fold the willow to make a hat. Wicker, everywhere, folded up in a circle, and then stuffed into the gap with some unknown wildflowers, this is a favorite thing for both children in the village and the city, and often attracts adults to join. The style of the made wicker hat is different, colorful, and when you wear it on your head, it is as if you have worn it all spring, and the flowers and young leaves also set off the good looks of the people.
When you return from a tomb sweep, you can carry a basket and shovel to come in handy - digging wild vegetables is also an indispensable custom of Qingming: the fields and the embankments on the shore are full of young dandelions, gray ash, sage grass, wild onions, maran heads and purslane... However, fresh things such as cabbage can only be found in the colder places. The flowers that emerge from the tall head are already so old that only the stems remain, and there is no skin and flesh at all, and they can only be used to boil eggs like the Three Of March in the Jianghan Plain, which is fragrant.
Feng Zikai once recorded his childhood memories of sweeping tombs during the Qingming Dynasty, which are quite similar to the scenes in my memory, and they are full of kindness to read. The faint sorrows, sorrows, and joys of new life in the spring day reach their culmination in the qingming festival, leaving people with a thousand emotions and endless tastes.
Excerpt from Qingming
Author: Feng Zikai
For three days, we went to the grave every day.
On the first day, cold food, in the afternoon on the "Yangzhuang Tomb". Yangzhuang Tomb is five or six miles away from the town, the waterway is not accessible, and it must be walked. Young and old don't go, I attended when I was seven or eight years old. Uncle Maosheng picked up a load of sacrifices and walked in front, and everyone followed him, picking peach blossoms and stealing new broad beans along the way.
When they arrived at the grave, everyone rested, and Uncle Maosheng went to a nearby farmhouse, borrowed a table and two stools, and then laid out sacrifices and knelt down in turn.
After the worship, play freely. Some eat sweet wheat cakes, some eat rice dumplings, and some pluck broad bean stalks to make flutes. The fava bean stalk is square, and a few holes are picked on top to serve as flute holes. Then pick a pea stalk and put it on one end of the flute, and the flute is made. Fingers press the flute hole, mouth blow pea stem, the pronunciation is also melodious and audible. Unfortunately, this flute does not have a long lifespan. Take it home, and the next day it dries up and can't blow.
After the sacrifice was finished, Uncle Maosheng went to return the table and stool, and as usual, sent two sweet wheat cakes and a bunch of rice dumplings as a reward. Then everyone went back together in the sunset.
There is only one large pine tree on Yangzhuang's grave, facing a pond. My father said it was called "beauty in the mirror." Now, after decades of not going, I don't know if the beauty is still looking in the mirror. Close your eyes, and the scene is like the present.
On the day of the Qingming Dynasty, go to the "grave of everyone". This is to go to the ancestral grave of the same ethnic group. There were five or six graves, and two boats were used for a whole day. There are five families in the same clan, which take turns to be the masters. Go to the grave during the day and eat the grave wine at night.
This fee is paid by Matsuda. The ancestors were scheming, and they were afraid that their descendants would not be able to go to the grave, and they would become hungry ghosts. Therefore, a few acres of sacrificial land were set aside and leased to the peasants. Whose turn it is to preside over the grave, and whose family collects the rent. In addition to hiring a boat to run alcohol, there is always a surplus of money. So everyone is happy to be in charge.
Children are especially happy because they can spend all day in the countryside and have lunch on the grass. The food cooked in the boat tasted particularly good. Because, according to the old people, there is a stove king bodhisattva in the house, and the good taste of the food is tasted first, and there is no stove king bodhisattva in the boat, so the food burned in the boat tastes particularly good.
Another pleasure for the children is to grab eggs to eat. At each grave, in addition to a table of offerings to the ancestors, there must be a small plaque containing small fish, small meat, eggs, wine and incense candles, which are eaten by the landlord, called the land of worship. Among the children, whoever kowtows to the graveyard first grabs the egg first. I rarely grabbed it, and I thought this egg was indeed better than usual.
After going to the grave one day, I came back from the grave and ate the grave wine in the evening. There are four or five tables of wine, because the married girls also come to eat. When eating wine, the elders always reprimand the juniors, and those who are reprimanded are mainly Leqian, Lesheng and Yuesheng. Because Le Qian stole and sold grave trees, Le Sheng and Yue Sheng did evil deeds, and the grave was often not available and the wine of the grave was eaten.
On the third day, the private house was buried. My family's private house grave, also known as the flagpole grave. It was our family, my parents and our siblings who went up.
After breakfast and lunch, hire a passenger ship and swing slowly. The waterway is five or six miles, and it will arrive soon. During the festival, the monks from the nearby Sanzhu Nunnery came to inquire and send us some spring shoots. We also went to play in this nunnery, and we saw that the bamboo forest was very large, and we were in it, and we didn't see the light of day.
We live in the low and narrow century-old house in the dust of the city all year round, and when we come to the rural fields, we feel extremely fresh and in a particularly fast mood, as if we are traveling all over the world. Therefore, we regard the tomb sweeping of Qingming as a supreme pleasure. My father spent a short life in a poor and remote village in a ruined house, and I remembered the infinite sympathy I felt.
This article is responsible for editing 丨 Jiang Yu
Co-ordinator丨 Zhang Beilei Guo Fang
Editor 丨Li Zhuohua Mo Qun
Proofreading 丨Pan Jingchun
Source 丨Nanfang Magazine WeChat public account