Wen | "the rats in the family symbolize wealth", which does make some sense, but if you think about it, you will fight the Cold War
Rats are also known as rats, and rats are a colloquial name that few people in the city call it, and only in rural areas can they be heard. According to statistics, there are more than 500 kinds of rats, and its existence history is also hundreds of millions of years.
They are a group of ordinary beings, but their identities are dual, and when they appear, they occupy a place in the long river of history, and they are inextricably linked to culture.
mouse
When they are selected as the first of the zodiac, when they show different vivid images under the painter's pen, they are destined to be endowed with different spirits and connotations.
If you want to truly know them in real life, you must combine its natural biological identity with the identity of the cultural divinity to understand more completely what stories have happened between it and humans for more than a thousand years.
Divine personality
Most people who come into regular contact with rats call them "rats" because the names of rats seem to be more in line with them in real life. In Yunnan, some people have built temples for them, called the Rat Temple, and people in the region are honored as "rat immortals".
There is a phenomenon that has been well known to the public, in the face of natural disasters such as earthquakes, these animals are often more sensitive than human perception.
The people who call them rat fairies are more people who work in coal mines all year round, and when things like landslides and disasters occur, rats often perceive them one step ahead of them.
It is conceivable that miners must have also seen the extraordinary performance of rats in the face of disasters.
Sometimes I have to admire people's discovery and creativity, and at one point in life, some people found that the cry of "money rat" is very similar to the sound of counting money.
In the old days, some people in Hubei and other places thought it was an auspicious omen, just like now going out and hearing the cries of magpies is coming to the door;
People in Zhejiang believe that "the lord gets rich in the first half of the night, and the lord scatters the wealth in the second half of the night";
The Chongming area believes that this sound indicates disaster.
Rats are very fertile, and when they give birth to offspring, they will be "a nest" of small rats, basically a number of about seven. Therefore, there was a period of folk worship that was used as a symbol of fertility worship. Mothers with children are also jokingly referred to as "rat fetuses" or "rat belly".
In the late Qing Dynasty painter Ren Pre's "Twelve Zodiac Atlas", there is a "Sub-Rat Diagram" work, in which five rats compete for the melon seeds in the food jar, and the "seed" and "zi" sound the same, which also expresses the meaning of multiple children.
People combine rats with gourds, grapes, pomegranates, etc., and multi-seeded plants to form auspicious patterns, but have a strong desire to reproduce.
"Rat Diagram"
There are also many cultural works related to rats, such as book reviews, comics, film and television dramas, movies and so on. Five Rats In Tokyo, Jade Cat Zhan Zhao, Bao Qingtian, Dynasty Mahan Zhang Long Zhao Hu, these names have been familiar to people.
There is also Mr. Xu Beihong's painting "Zodiac Atlas", one of which is a work of a mouse, which is said to have been auctioned for 46 million yuan in 2014.
Contemporary Chinese painter Fan Zeng's "Twelve Zodiac Diagrams", a vivid image of zodiac allusions, was auctioned for 3.74 million yuan in 2004.
Zodiac Album
Rats are both familiar and unfamiliar to men and women in modern cities. It's not as cute as the little mouse in the cartoon Tom and Jerry.
In the countryside, the most favorite places for rats to stay are the rice rack and the side room (the house where the grain is stored), and sometimes at night in these two places they will hear the sound of them biting each other and nibbling on the grain.
Maybe one day, a large pile of grain will suddenly be found somewhere, which is the "masterpiece" of the rats.
If placed decades ago, this kind of voice might have only happened in the homes of landlords or "rich people". But for ordinary families, all these things are the things that the host family least wants to hear and see, and at these times it is also the most hated.
There is a saying that is a vivid metaphor and a portrayal of reality, "the rats crossing the street are shouted and beaten by everyone."
(The image comes from the Internet, if there is infringement, contact to delete.) ）