Folklore | Tian Zhaoyuan: Try to establish Chinese Mother's Day with the idea of establishing a Mother's Day genealogy

Editor's note: Folklore related to festivals has been passed down for thousands of years and contains the wisdom and culture of ancestors. In modern society, we are gradually drifting away from traditional folk customs, but at a certain moment, we will still be amazed by the names of the 24 solar terms such as Qingming and Guyu, and will be moved by the Lantern Festival's "flower market lights like day", and will go to our hometown from a distant hometown during the Spring Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival. Folklore is the memory of Chinese that flows in the blood.

In collaboration with the Institute of Folklore of East China Normal University, The Paper has launched a column on traditional folk festivals to introduce festivals that are very important in traditional Chinese culture and related folk customs, which have not disappeared and are still in our daily lives.

The second Sunday in May is Mother's Day, and this year it's May 8th. Mothers' love for their children is often selfless and unrequited, and as a result, Mother's Day spread rapidly and became a day of remembrance for people to thank their mothers.

Coincidentally, the day before Mother's Day this year is the sixth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar, which is the birthday of the zodiac. This woman who improved cotton weaving technology in the Ming Dynasty let Songjiang Province cotton cloth be sold throughout the country. Because of the life of "clothes under the heavens", the zodiac is also revered as the "Yellow Mother".

Starting from "Yellow Mother", Tian Zhaoyuan, a professor at East China Normal University, mentioned another meaning of "mother". Because mothers have selfless and great love, in addition to the "mothers" in kinship relations, we will also call them "mothers" for people or things that give us the grace of nurturing, "There are many 'Chinese mothers' like Zodiac, each with outstanding virtues and talents." ”

"Mother China" is linked to national identity

"Wu Ni Jing Temple worships Huang Po, and there are many three forests in the standard cloth." Clothing and food and clothing of our people are true to the mothers, and the thousand autumn newspapers play strings and songs. Fang Yun, a lecturer at the School of International Education of Shanghai University and a doctor of folklore, found people's praises of Zodiac in the bamboo branches of Shanghai.

Huang Daobo was a native of Wunijing Town, Songjiang Province (now Huajing Township, Minhang District, Shanghai), she learned advanced cotton textile technology from Yazhou, Hainan, returned to Wunijing to teach skills, and for a while everyone woven cloth, Wunijing was popular in the north and south of the great river, and also brought rich income to the locals. After the death of Zodiac, the local government thanked her for her kindness and erected a shrine to commemorate her. In later generations, on the birthday of The Yellow Mother, everyone will go to the temple to worship the Zodiac, and "the true mothers of our people" express everyone's love for this "Yellow Mother" who selflessly teaches skills and lets the locals eat and wear warmth.

The records in some historical materials also restore the people's respect for the "Yellow Mother" at that time. Her ancestral hall is very gorgeous: "The three trees of the main hall, the heavy hall mezzanine, and the magnificence are gorgeous." Outside, there are blisters in the offering, and the swallows enjoy the order. On weekdays, incense is exuberant: "The statue of the old woman in the temple, the statue of the old woman, has always been the most abundant incense, and every autumn is formed, and the acting rewards the gods." On his birthday, textile practitioners and people from nearby counties come to worship: "Nearby counties, cheering and admiring, holding fishy ripeness, incense sticks, squirrels, and those who are under the mud head, shoulder to shoulder." ”......

Three spindles collected by the Maritime Wind and Folklore Museum of East China Normal University

The spinning wheel depicts an elderly woman with a slightly hunched back and holding a piece of cloth. Scholars at the Institute of Folklore at East China Normal University believe that this may be the most credible zodiacal statue ever found

Calling Huang Daobo "Yellow Mother", as one of the representatives of "Chinese Mother", starting from her achievements in "clothing the world", her exploration of cotton textile technology has benefited countless people and allowed more people to eat and wear warm.

Similar to the "Yellow Mother" is the "first silkworm" of the silk textile industry, the Yellow Emperor Yuan Concubine Concubine Ancestor. According to legend, it was The Ancestor who invented the silkworm reeling technology, which is known in history as the "Silkworm of the Ancestors". In order to commemorate her deeds, later generations called her "First Silkworm Lady" and Silkworm God. According to legend, the queens of the Zhou dynasty enjoyed the silkworms, and the later feudal dynasties were sacrificed by the empresses.

In the Taiwan area of Fujian Province, the belief in the motherly god "Mazu" is linked to the national identity of the two sides of the strait with the same roots and origins. You Hongxia, an assistant researcher at the Institute of Folklore of the School of Social Development of East China Normal University, once interviewed Taiwan volunteers in several "Tianhou Temples" in Kunshan, "Their feelings for Mazu are their feelings for their mothers." ”

Mr. Liao, a volunteer at Kunshan Huiju Tianhou Temple, told You Hongxia, "Sometimes I am in a bad mood, and I will tell Mazu that Mazu is like a mother. Some words are not suitable to tell your family, just come and tell Mazu, ask Mazu what to do, Mazu will answer you. This is a habit. ”

Mr. Weng, a staff member of the "Beigang Chaotian Palace" in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, said bluntly to her, "The divine relationship between the two sides of the strait has not been broken, and the most realistic point of view is that the people of Taiwan immigrated from Chinese mainland in the early days, so I say that they are all the same origin, and Mazu is like the common mother of the people on both sides of the strait, and there is nothing to distinguish." We Taiwan compatriots come here to have a common goal, that is, to inherit the Mazu faith. ”

"Taiwan compatriots regard Mazu as 'mother.'" Mazu is also a "Chinese mother", and You Hongxia believes that the identification with Mazu and the concept of "the same mother" have condensed the consensus of the people on both sides of the strait and to a certain extent helped to unite the national identity of the two sides of the strait.

Qing Kangtao's "Meng Mu Broken Machine Godson Diagram" collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing

The story of "MengMu's Three Migrations" is well known to more people. In the "Three Character Classic" of children's learning language, it is mentioned that "Xi Mengmu, choose the neighbor." The child does not learn, and the machine is broken." It is said that the mother of Mencius, the representative figure of Confucianism, moved several times in order to provide him with a good learning environment when he was a child, and when she saw that he was greedy and refused to learn, she broke the shuttle on the loom and taught him that he would achieve nothing halfway. Under the influence of his mother, Mencius recognized the importance of learning and eventually became a great generation.

Unlike Mazu and Changzu, Meng Mu is an ordinary mother who really existed in history, and she has not been revered as a god in later generations, but her way of nurturing her children by following the rules and setting an example is enough to make her a "Chinese mother" who is remembered and respected by future generations.

"Chinese Mother's Day" and "Chinese Mother Flower"

"Chinese mothers are a genealogy, a group, and can be represented by many outstanding mothers. Huang Daobo can be used as a mother representative of Shanghai and Jiangnan regions. Meng Mu as the representative of the Shandong region, Changzu as the representative of the mother of the southwest region, the queen mother as the representative of the mother of the northwest region, they are all Chinese mothers, is a group, each with outstanding virtues and talents. Tian Zhaoyuan said.

China's traditional festivals are generally comprehensive, and lack a single prominent humanistic theme festival, such as Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, etc. Modern society has the need to express human feelings, so imported festivals such as Mother's Day entered China and soon gained universal recognition and spread.

Valuing Mother's Day and paying attention to expressing love for mothers is the need for people to express their emotions. But Tian Zhaoyuan felt that there was also a regrettable part in it. For example, everyone now regards carnations as flowers representing the mother, but China also has a flower that represents the mother, "Xuancao". Xuancao has appeared in ancient Chinese records for more than 3,000 years, and it has a history of more than 1,000 years as an image symbol representing the mother. In the Tang Dynasty Mengjiao's "Wandering Zi Yin", "Xuancao Shengtang Steps, Wandering Zi Xing Tianya", expressing the meaning of "the mother of the child's journey", the Hakka plaque has "Xuanhua Yongmao" and "Xuantang Yanfu" and other common contents, are to bless the mother's longevity. But now the carnation is completely covered with the mother image of the Chinese grass, which is a very regrettable thing.

From the perspective of caring for traditional culture, in the past ten years, the call for the establishment of "Chinese Mother's Day" has been endless, "Meng Mu", "Chang Zu", "West Queen Mother" and so on have been nominated as "representatives", but people are grateful to their mothers, not to commemorate the merits of a certain mother, but to be grateful for the identity of mothers, grateful for maternal love in the general sense, and it is not entirely practical to simply choose a "representative". Tian Zhaoyuan proposed that we can try to establish a "Chinese Mother's Day" with the idea of establishing a Mother's Day genealogy, and include a good "Chinese mother" to give More meaning to Mother's Day.