The blazing sun shines on the locust trees, and the grasshoppers on the windowsill desperately cry out for summer... This is the memory of many people's childhood, and the smell of grasshoppers makes people seem to return to the childhood time of catching grasshoppers and raising grasshoppers. For thousands of years, as a pet that everyone from the emperor and the courtiers to the villagers and children liked to keep, the grasshopper embodied the long-standing cultural imprint and the smell of fireworks in the world. Recently, the reporter visited the Jinan Hero Mountain Cultural Market, looking for this small insect with childlike and local flavor, listening to nature and reminiscing about the year of water flow.
Former white-collar workers who designed the logo for the grasshopper"Chirping and chirping..." With the echo of long, ear-to-ear grasshoppers, Xiao Pang was busy answering questions for the endless stream of guests.
"What happened to my grasshoppers losing their hind legs?" An old gentleman asked. "It could be getting old, or it could be related to feeding. A black belly is old, feeding more sweets, or the water temperature is high, it is easy to lose your legs. Pang replied.
A five- or six-year-old asked, "What if it keeps calling at night?" Put it in the refrigerator..." Before he could finish speaking, the reporter couldn't hold his breath, "Isn't that freezing to death?" It's okay, refrigerate adjusted to four or five degrees Celsius, the time is not too long, no problem to take it out in the morning. The general temperature of raising grasshoppers is 25 ° C - 28 ° C, above 20 ° C it is called, below 20 ° C it is not called..." Xiao Pang replied.
There are hundreds of grasshoppers on Xiao Pang's shelves, and the deafening cries make people almost rely on "shouting" to hear when they talk. "This is Tianjin green, this is Beijing black, this is Shandong green." You came a little early, this is June, summer is not the time to play with insects, now are children feel interesting to buy to raise and play, the real connoisseurs play is the winter worms, at that time not only grasshoppers, but also other bugs like bambooflies, horseflies, yellowflies, telegraph frogs and so on. Mainly in the autumn to Spring Festival period of each year, the long-lived grasshopper can live for eight or nine months. ”
Xiao Pangyuan has a pair of glasses on his face, is polite and polite, and looks quite like a "cultural person". When it comes to raising insects, he is very good at talking, and even some old players are quite impressed.
After chatting with Xiao Pang, I learned that his name was Pang Zhenwei, his home was in Guangxi, and he had been in Jinan for nearly ten years. Xiao Pang said that there are no grasshoppers in Guangxi, and when he came to Jinan to study in 2013, he liked these small insects, and as a result, he raised a grasshopper that made everyone unable to sleep. After working for several years, he worked in brand design, felt the pressure of work, and opened this bug hall in the Hero Mountain Cultural Market with his cousin Xiaoyuan.
The reporter was curious: Why don't you let a good white-collar worker raise insects? Xiao Pang's cousin Xiao Yuan replied: "My brother himself is more introverted, he used to do sales, because he is not very good at expressing, so he feels that he is not particularly comfortable." Raising grasshoppers is with small insects every day and does not require much communication. He is more careful, he is also concerned about the work of raising insects, raising well and growing children, which is also an independent business. ”
Speaking of the annual income, Xiao Pang said: "Not making money is fake, the key is that this matter is relatively free." Winter is the peak season, summer is the off-season to make less money, and the insects sold are basically coaxing children to play. In the winter, there are good grasshoppers, good state, good physical strength, good sound, last year's most expensive one sold for three thousand eight hundred yuan, this is still ordinary points, and then the better six or seven thousand yuan have. "Xiao Pang applied the old business he had done before to grasshopper marketing and cultural and creative product design." Look, that's the trademark I designed. He pointed to the shelves and the signs at the door, saying that the reporter noticed that these small signs were very chic, both ancient and modern.
It contains a nostalgia for rural life"Grasshoppers, crickets and oil gourds are called the three major songbirds, which can be divided into two categories, the northern grasshopper and the southern grasshopper, and the northern grasshopper is superior to the southern grasshopper; According to the classification of body color, it can be divided into green grasshoppers, black grasshoppers, mountain green grasshoppers and other varieties. Xiao Pang said.
The little songworm is both a pet and a seasonal insect, and has been valued for more than 3,000 years. During the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, people collectively referred to grasshoppers and locusts as grasshoppers, and the word "qiu" in the Shang Dynasty oracle bones is represented by an insect shaped like a grasshopper, and paleographers interpret it as "like the shape of a grasshopper, to show that the ant is singing into autumn." ”
Grasshoppers are closely linked to the seasons and become a reflection of phenological characteristics. More than 2,000 years ago, there are many poems about grasshoppers in the Book of Poetry, which is the earliest text in the world to record grasshoppers. There is a verse in the Book of Poetry and July, "May Singular Moving Stocks, June Sha Ji Zhen Yu"; The ant has a strong ability to reproduce, there is a prayer for more children, the poem "Poetry Sutra • Ant" is a poem that the ancestors praise and wish the "Descendants of Yi'er" many children and many grandchildren, and today people also use it to bless the newcomers, "Ant Yanqing, such as drum Qinser", which means that children and grandchildren are full of halls, husband and wife Qinser and Ming, feelings are harmonious. It is no longer just a songbird in nature, but has been given more cultural symbolism, containing a nostalgia for pastoral life.
As the king of the insects, in ancient times, from the imperial relatives and nobles to the literati rioters to the villagers and children, they all had a love for grasshoppers. Raising grasshoppers as pets has at least a thousand years of history, the Song Dynasty people began to raise grasshoppers, and the Ming Dynasty from the court to the folk to raise grasshoppers has been more common.
To say that raising grasshoppers is famous, but also Mr. Wang Shixiang, he loves to raise wintering songbirds, when he was studying at Yenching University, Wang Shixiang actually played grasshoppers in class. In the book, he also describes the elegant thing of riding a bicycle back and forth for a hundred miles to catch grasshoppers in the mountains of Anzigou or Niushuoling: starting in the middle of the night, waiting to enter the ditch or crossing the ridge, it is already three rods in the day, and the grasshoppers flapp their wings. At three o'clock in the afternoon, I went back to the city, and it was dark for a long time, and I was so tired that I didn't even know how to get out of the car.
For beginners, how do you pick a cockroach? Xiao Pang said that the selection of grasshoppers first looks at the head, as the saying goes, the body is not lost, the grasshopper new off (just after the shell of the adult insect) generally pick a large, good shape. Then there is the choice of those with long wings, wide wings, and thick wings. In addition, the neck of the grasshopper should be high, otherwise the shoulders cannot be opened when calling, and the sound is not good if it cannot be opened. In addition, pay attention to the selection of appetite, such as strong aggression, good physical strength. The call of the grasshopper has three levels of crisp, bright and humble, and the best grasshopper call is the cry. Like the very famous iron grasshopper, its call appears to be thick and loud; The "Green Brother" call is crisp and loud, both good-looking and good-sounding.
If you eat greasy, it will catch fire, and don't feed the onion leaves and peppers
In Xiao Pang's aphid room, there are still thousands of grasshoppers, feeding the grasshoppers every day, feeding water, and cleaning dishes is his main daily work. The so-called grasshopper house is a greenhouse for breeding grasshoppers. The song bugs that insect friends enjoy in the winter are obtained by artificial breeding, and the technology of artificial breeding of songworms is called "aphids" in the jargon. As a songbird that appreciates sound, the grasshopper does not actually sing with its mouth, but the two leaf forewings of the male insect rub against each other, which can make a crisp and pleasant sound, and the role of this sound is mainly to attract the opposite sex, call on the same sex, and intimidate the enemy. Some people may not know that the only one who can make sounds is the male, and the female is "dumb".
Xiao Pang said that it seems that there are thousands of nymphs, but the adult rate is low, except for females, molting and falling off the bar, generally can reach 20%, can reach 30% is very good.
According to reports, from hatching to adult, grasshoppers molt 7 times, each time for 7 days, a total of 49 days. Every time it molts, it grows a little longer, and it eats it every time it is molted. Xiao Pang said, "Pay special attention not to drop the bar when molting." When the grasshopper molts, it hangs upside down with its head down, and relies on gravity to molt the new body out of the sheath. At this time, the most taboo is to be frightened, not to have a loud noise and vibration, so as not to fall down the grasshopper, commonly known as "falling bar", the grasshopper that drops the bar has the danger of "crippling".
There is also a lot of learning to feed grasshoppers, according to reports, like carrots, sweet potatoes, soybeans, edamame, are the favorite food of grasshoppers, carrots, sweet potatoes cut into finger-sized pieces on the line. Soybeans need to be soaked in advance to soften, and edamame can be fed raw by peeling off the shell, two grains at a time, not too often. As he was speaking, a great uncle came in and asked, "I feed the grasshoppers two bread worms every time, is this okay?" Xiao Pang replied: "It is not appropriate to eat bread worms for a long time, eating too greasy is easy to indigestion, on fire, you can change to vegetarian food." Only then did I know that the original grasshopper eating green onion leaves and peppers will also accelerate aging and shorten life. In addition, grasshoppers should also try to avoid feeding sweet and sticky foods, because these foods are easy to adhere to the claws and whiskers of the grasshoppers, causing the grasshoppers to bite off their whiskers and claws. "When molting, you can add some nutrition to make it eat a little better." Pang said.
"When the temperature is high, the grasshopper will chirp loudly, but the long-term chirping will also consume physical strength and shorten the lifespan, so the old player will not let the grasshopper chirp for a long time." Pang reminds.
The unique "point medicine", the ancient song of the secretThe most important thing for grasshoppers as songbirds is to listen to sounds, and what outsiders don't know is that the call of grasshoppers can be improved by artificial injection. What is the name of "point medicine"? This is the ancient people's artificial song secret.
According to Xiao Pang, the grasshopper chirps in two types: "original name" and "medicine call" (also known as "point medicine"). The original call is a natural song, and the medicinal call is to "light the medicine" on the wings, with the help of foreign objects to reduce the vibration frequency of the wings, and then change the sound of the grasshopper's chirping.
I don't know when the medicine began, but there is a legend that a eunuch in the palace at the end of the Qing Dynasty hung a grasshopper cage under a pine tree, and one day he suddenly heard a great change in the sound, and the sound became vigorous and pleasant. On closer inspection, it was found that there were pine resin droplets on the wings of the grasshoppers, causing a change in the sound, and since then there has been a grasshopper point medicine method, which has been popular in the 1920s and 1930s. It is understood that the weight, size and position of the medicine on the grasshopper's bladder are very exquisite, and can be specifically determined according to the type, size, shape, and thickness of the grasshopper, and the drug can be prescribed as appropriate.
The work of ordering medicine is mainly responsible for Xiao Yuan, who said: "There are very few grasshoppers that can call out the grasshoppers, and it is unlikely that ordinary grasshoppers can call out the grasshoppers by themselves. Grasshoppers (wings) are left arms on the top, right arms on the bottom, is left wings. According to the location of the point, there are "bright medicines" and "dark medicines". The ingredient of the so-called bright medicine is cinnabar medicine, boiling rosin and cinnabar together, pointing the most traditional big red dot, the upper arm (wings), the lower arm are all points; Dark medicine is mainly lead powder and oil mixture. ”
Point medicine is a unique skill, two wings to one up, called "bottom medicine" and "cover medicine", Mr. Wang Shixiang has a detailed description of the grasshopper point medicine: the so-called "point", that is, the use of hot needle tips to pick up crushed drug chips, the medicine chips are heated and melted after attaching to the tip of the needle, at this time the needle waist close to the candle to heat up, rapidly upright, so that the melted medicine flows down the tip of the needle, pointing at the upper right side of the upper wing of the grasshopper, the medicine falls to solidify, there is the size of millet, like a small red bead embedded in the wing, this is the "cover medicine". Change the angle of the left wrist, turn outward slightly, reveal the back of the grasshopper's bottom arm, repeat the previous operation, and use a needle to point the medicine at the upper part of the transparent membrane on the back of the bottom arm (known as "mirror") at the fork of the bladder tendon (known as "three forks"), which is the "bottom medicine". The call of the grasshoppers that have been ordered is no longer sharp and harsh, but has become thick and deep.
Picking gourds is learned, porcelain fur bran tire satinThere is also a lot of attention in the choice of grasshopper utensils. Insects are the tools used to raise grasshoppers, and they are also the "dwellings" of grasshoppers. Now in the summer, it is hot, in order to dissipate heat and breathe, grasshoppers are generally raised with small cages, and grasshoppers are raised in winter with gourds.
Gourd, also known as "dagger". The role of the gourd is to keep warm in winter, which can optimize the sound of grasshoppers and facilitate carrying and playing. "The gourd generally selects the porcelain skin bran tire satin, that is, the more porcelain the leather, the better, the more delicate the better, the carcass chaff is to absorb the effect of noise is good, satin refers to the delicacy of the inside, the best is like satin, a touch of slippery, all for the sound effect is good." Pang said.
"Look, this is the chicken heart!" Xiao Pang held up a gourd and said that raising different insects with different gourds, like raising grasshoppers, there are chicken hearts, willow leaves, oil bottles, sticks and other instruments, such as chicken hearts, which can make the grasshoppers sound brighter and better.
Wang Shixiang's old Tibetan imperial insect (grasshopper) cage
Wang Shixiang's study of gourds also began with raising winter insects. In the "Golden Ash Pile And Winter Worms", he specifically talks about the gourds that store winter song insects such as grasshoppers and oil gourds, and has a more detailed introduction to the differences between gourds for different purposes. In short, the grasshopper gourd has a pointed bottom, a thick waist, and a long belly; The bottom of the oil gourd gourd is round, and the belly is short and thick. The biggest difference between the two is that the grasshopper gourd does not have a frame on the mouth, and the scoop lid is used to use a circular blade sawn off the large gourd and drilled a hole. The oil gourd and the golden bell gourd have a frame on the mouth, and the frame is inlaid with a hollowed-out carved core.
The translator Yang Xianyi once gave a poem to Wang Shixiang: although the grasshoppers are delicate objects, people will remember the old Beijing for a long time. The melodious insect song evokes many mountain and forest wild interests and childhood memories, and the little grasshopper is closely related to the world, related to the customs and concepts and emotional ways of Chinese, and is the closest sentient thing to heaven and earth and carries the fireworks of the world.