Every flower But my worries let it open all over me Waiting for you on your way home... Zhang Xiaofei used a soft voice to narrate the daughter in her mother's eyes, from the little girl who picked flowers for her to wear, imagined her appearance of marriage, to worrying that she would be unhappy when she traveled far away, looking forward to her return, and every daylily flower blooming on the side of the road was her mother's watch. The tenderness that came to the heart against the lungs, and the softness caught off guard against the love, longing and concern that were dormant in the heart. Daylilies are the mother flower of China and represent maternal love. "Shijing Shuyi Huitong" contains "Beitang is dark and can grow xuan", Beitang, in ancient times, refers to the mother's residence, so it is also called xuantang. Around the time of the Tang and Song dynasties, the meaning of daylilies was finally formed, and daylilies became the mother flower of Chinese. Modern people, influenced by the West, are accustomed to sending carnations to their mothers to express their gratitude. Carnations are native to the Mediterranean, and after Western Mother's Day was introduced to the mainland through Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, carnations gradually replaced daylilies. Daylilies are roughly divided into three categories: daylilies yellowflower, daylilies (variety) with heavy petals and daylilies with large flowers.
My first contact with daylilies was through the intimate way of the tip of the tongue. In 2003, on the second day of the Lunar New Year, I went to a village in southern Sichuan to pay New Year's greetings. The village also has the folk custom of eating transfer during the Spring Festival, and the eating habits in the mainland are similar, with several tables of guests eating that day, and the Baxian table is full of food, chicken, duck and fish and bacon sausages. Among them, there is a bowl of chicken soup that is more eye-catching, and yellow flowers are added to the soup. The boiled yellow flowers have been soaked up with gravy and soup, and have returned to their original appearance, and it can be seen that they are buds that have not yet opened. I remember the yellow cauliflower stew I drank on that trip to the south of Sichuan because it tasted unusual, had a faint aroma, and was cooked with vinegar and a little sour. The taste of yellow flowers is refreshing and crispy, and Ji Xiaolan, an official of the Qing Dynasty, fell in love with yellow cauliflower, praising it as "a good dish, its taste is endless, and people who often eat yellow cauliflower are smarter." Yellow flowers are daylilies. Daylilies are eaten, and Cantonese people call them golden needles. The first choice for the ingredients of Mr. Sun Yat-sen's dietary therapy and fitness recipe "Four Things" is golden needles (black fungus, bean pea, bean sprouts). In the "Rescue of Wasteland Materia Medica" compiled by Zhu Wei in the Ming Dynasty, it was included as a wild vegetable and listed as one of the "mountain treasures", which is the best vegetarian dish. Yellow flowers can be eaten fresh and cold, because they contain colchicine, which needs to be blanched when eating, add black fungus, garlic and other condiments, and mix with old vinegar and sesame oil, smooth and crisp, pleasant aroma. The roots and leaves of daylilies can be used for medicinal purposes, and the medicinal value is high. In traditional Chinese medicine, daylilies have the effect of calming the five internal organs, brightening the eyes, opening the chest and diaphragm, and lowering cholesterol, making people feel calm after taking it, from this point of view, the "forgetfulness" effect of daylilies is worthy of the name. Daylily flowers have high iron content, have a miracreous effect on blood replenishment and hemostasis, and can be used as a good blood supplement for women. Daylilies have a sweet and cool taste and have the effect of clearing heat and detoxifying. Because its seedling smell is similar to green onions, and it is also quite similar to deer onions, one of the nine antidote herbs eaten by deer, the ancient books "Compendium of Materia Medica" and "Dongzi" regard daylilies as deer onions. According to the Qing Dynasty's "Qunfang Spectrum", deer onions have other things.
I met daylilies, which are the flowers of the plant, in March of this year. On my mother's birthday, I went to the flower market early in the morning to buy bouquets for my mother. I saw a large handful of yellow lilies inserted in the white clay pot at the entrance of the flower shop, and the yellow lilies in full bloom were very pleasing, and the fat petals surrounded the delicate and delicate flower stamens, exuding a maternal brilliance. There's a reason why it has a maternal glow, and the artificially bred horticultural yellow lily has a very cute title - golden doll daylilies, a variant of daylilies. Daylilies usually referred to in real life are large-flowered daylilies. In fact, daylilies were a traditional Chinese garden flower in ancient times. During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, a variety of daylilies were planted in Xingqing Palace, and in the Tang Dynasty, daylilies flowers have become one of the favorite flowers and plants inside and outside the court. In the process of human history, daylilies have accumulated rich symbolic meanings, and daylily culture has gradually integrated into people's daily life. There are three daylilies culture: one is to forget worries, the other is to be suitable for men, and the third refers to mothers. Chinese express feelings in a subtle and pragmatic way. Zhang Hua's "Natural History" of the Jin Dynasty recorded: "Daylilies, food is so joyful, forget worries, so forget worries." "The ancients believed that daylilies could not only relieve inner worries, but also be used for ornamentation, and flower buds could be eaten as vegetables. This benefit is an essential requirement for the survival of rivers that species have survived for thousands of years. Daylilies entered literary works with the image of forgetfulness, beginning with the "Book of Poetry, Weifeng and Boxi", "The grass is the back of the tree." May the words make my heart sick", and the "grass" of which is daylilies. When the husband was away from war, the wife thought of the heartache, so she put her worries on daylilies, how can we get daylilies, saying that planting them in the north hall can make people forget their worries. In the Tang Dynasty, Bai Juyi once wrote the ancient famous phrase "Du Kang can dissipate boredom, daylilies relieve forgetfulness" with the image of daylilies. Du Kang is usually used to relieve men's inner depression, and Bai Juyi juxtaposes daylilies with Du Kang wine as a good way to forget their troubles. Song Dynasty Shi Xiaoyou's "Eye Child, Sorrowful Clouds Light Rain Xiaoxiao": "Sadness clouds are light and rainy, and the dynasty is restored at dusk." Don't come to it, the eyebrows are reduced, and the wrist is jade and fragrant. Xiao Xuan sat alone in lovesickness, and his mood was so boring. A clump of daylilies, a few poles of bamboo, and a few plantains. "For Yi Wan's haggard appearance, it can be described as writing about lovesickness. In the "Send Xu Hao", Mu Rong of the Tang Dynasty wrote that "Knowing that the prince is in love with love, and the hall is full of snow on the hall", and used "Tsubaki" to refer to parents, Tsubaki represented his father in ancient times, and Xuan was used to represent his mother from then on. In the old days, before the wanderer traveled far away, it was customary to plant daylilies in his mother's residence, and if he saw a thousand mountains, he hoped that his mother would not be overly sad because of the child's long journey. Meng Jiao's "Youzi": "Daylilies give birth to the stairs, and the wanderer travels the world." The loving mother leaned against the door of the hall, and there were no daylilies in sight. "When the poet travels far away, the mother's concern can be imagined, so the poet planted daylilies in front of the hall, which expressed a feeling of pity for the mother. Meng Jiao's "Youzi" connects the image of daylilies forgetting worries with his mother's concern for the wanderer, which has been followed by successive generations. As the saying goes, "Raising a child knows the grace of the parents", that is, only by thinking from another position can we experience the state of mind of the parents. It is difficult for parents to empathize with their children's feelings if they are not in it. The lyrics of "Daylilies" have touched my heartstrings deeply, and they are also based on real feelings in recent years.
In the early morning of August 11, 2019, we dropped off our daughter at Shuangliu International Airport. After completing the check-in procedures in an orderly manner, the three girls carried their backpacks to customs. The moment my daughter turned away, my eyes rippled under the bright lights of the airport lobby. After walking a few steps, her daughter seemed to realize that there was a lack of ritual, she ran back to hug me, saw me emotional, and gently patted my back with her slender hand to comfort: "I'll be back for the New Year." "The three girls made their journey to a rocky journey, taking a Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong in a stopover at the time of a strike by Hong Kong airport workers. That day, I kept turning on the computer, the screen stayed on the trajectory of the route, anxiety and worry rushed to my heart, until more than 20 hours later, I received a message on WeChat that she was safe, and my heart settled down. That stability is temporary, and the worries are just beginning. The novel coronavirus epidemic has swept the world, and the price of air tickets back home has skyrocketed. At the same time, diplomatic disputes between the two countries have intensified, making the visa processing process more stringent. The daughter's return period has been extended from six months to three years, and now to five years. "Before leaving, I am afraid that I will return late", my mother has already woven a soft heart into the dense stitches. When the child is around, "I am afraid to melt in my mouth, and I am afraid of falling when I hold it in my hand", and the distress can touch her, and I can protect her with my own strength. In recent years, Wen You, who often cares about his children, has sent me disturbing videos such as the number of infected people on the other side of the ocean, shootings, and local people's hatred of Asian-Chinese, and in the face of those videos, his words are calm and he is secretly afraid. The whip is beyond his reach, and he can only silently worry across the entire Pacific Ocean, looking at the ocean and sighing. The ancient literati used daylilies to place their sorrows and divert their emotions, but they were a little dispersed and forgot a moment of worry. Forgetting your sorrows is tantamount to losing your thoughts. For the mother, even if the daylilies can be forgotten, they do not want to forget. Although the thoughts are bitter, they are as sweet as food. The end of the world far away, daylilies bloom every flower, but I care about it, let it bloom all over me, waiting for you on your way home... She wrote not for one person, but for all the naked children in the world. Repeated listening, repeated chanting, whether narrating or personal speaking, can touch every heart that has experienced separation, and people can't help but burst into tears. The feelings expressed in the song "Daylilies" are common emotions that exist in the hearts of mothers. The most perfect family affection in the world should be as the Northern Song poet Ye Mengde wrote, "On the white-haired Xuan Hall, the children are more embraced", there is a gray-haired old mother in the high hall, and having children and grandchildren under the knee around the knee is the ideal happiness in the world. The "Xuantang" here refers to the old mother, which means that the place where there is a mother is home.
Another image of daylilies is Yi Male. Yinan is another earlier and more important alias for daylilies. During the Wei and Jin dynasties, the image of daylilies as a suitable male flower was already reflected in poetry, and the subsequent generations of discussions on the meaning of daylilies and men continued. Jin Zhou's "Records of Customs" contains: "A pregnant woman wears a grass and gives birth to a man." "It reflects the ancient Chinese consciousness of fertility worship, and the lineage is mainly male. The "Qi Min Essential Technique" written by Jia Sixun, an outstanding agronomist of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Li Shizhen's "Materia Medica" of the Ming Dynasty, and the fourth volume of Chen Jiru's "Pearl Ship" "Wei Shuren's sister uses a leopard head pillow to ward off evil, Bai Ze pillow to ward off enchantment, and bear pillow to meet men" all say this. Legend has it that in ancient times, women wore Yi Men to give birth to boys, like pomegranates, which means many children and blessings. Artistic creation after the Song Dynasty paid great attention to daylilies, such as the combination of daylilies and pomegranates, which means "suitable for men and many children"; The combination of daylilies and shoushi has the meaning of "suitable for men and long life". Ming Dynasty painter Chen Chun once painted "Daylilies Shoushi Diagram", which is inscribed with poems: "The flowers lean on the stone to bloom, and the flowers are good and the stone is also beautiful." It is deep in the rain and dew, and the color is late and luxuriant. May the mother be like a flower and stone, and live together with good people. "In the special historical period of family planning in the mainland, women were subject to the shackles of male discourse and rights, and their lives were squeezed by policy and barbarism. Influenced by long-term farming culture, men's physical strength is significantly better than women's physiology, physical strength means access to more food sources and survival in war, the concept of gender inequality has always existed, and women's fate is the turntable promoted by the core of male power. The feudal ideology of son preference greatly affects the desire of parents to have boys and girls, and also determines the fate and future of mothers and girls with second or even third children. Although there is no scientific basis for Daylilies Yinan's statement, the power of everyone to accumulate gold and destroy bones can never be ignored. Therefore, in ancient societies where patriarchal thinking was extremely serious, this concept determined the special status of daylilies in the flower world. My sister and I are survivors of the Planned Parenthood policy. I have two older sisters, my father is the eldest son in the family, and the family needs a boy to stand up for my parents. When my mother was pregnant with me, she went to Mr. Bazi to tell my fortune, and I was hit as a baby boy. But my birth disappointed my mother's expectations. Who made me hope, hope turned into disappointment, in the eyes of my mother is a thorn that cannot be swallowed and spit out. At the instigation of my aunt, my parents gambled again, so there was a little four. Little Four was born, still a daughter. The uncle, who had been bound by feudal concepts all her life, had another plan and suggested that Little Four be taken to exchange boys with relatives, which shows that women under the patriarchal concept are only tools for reproduction or exchangeable items. After all, my mother couldn't bear the little four, and she confessed her life. My little four and I were happy, but we saw some unfortunate baby girls in our childhood and adolescence, and witnessed the original sin of the countryside barbarism. At that time, there was no need to go to the hospital to give birth, some second-child and third-child baby girls in the yard were sent away overnight just after delivery, and I don't know how many induced babies were scrawled in the low hilly fields to give birth to fetuses who had not yet had time to see the world. To this day, primitive sins such as "Blind Mountain" and Woman in Chains still exist. If pregnant women could really give birth to boys by wearing daylilies, there would not be so many black girls, abandoned babies and fetuses who died before the light of day. Today's women owe a debt of gratitude to the pioneers of world feminism, Simone de Beauvoir and Coretta Scott King, and the new women of the May Fourth Movement, Guo Longzhen and Qiu Jin, who campaigned for women's independence and freedom, and gradually withdrew patriarchal ideas from the mainstream. Mother's Day in the West was introduced to China to fight for the rights and status of women in real life. In ancient times, it was not common to give flowers to mothers on holidays. Until now, whenever I buy flowers for my mother, she is very happy at the time, but later when she faces the withering bouquet, she can't help but regret that the money spent is not worth it. Hopefully, leave Mother's Day and send my mother a bouquet of daylilies and a hug during the festival, so that the love of daylilies can continue. August 2022 in Chengdu
//
About the author: Blue blue, love to be alone, enjoy the tranquility of your own in the fragrance of tea. Living in Chengdu for a long time, I have the same leisure temperament as this city in my bones. I like the solitary journey of a person, and I seek the knowledge of my true self while walking. He has published personal anthologies "Water Lily Tank Under the Cherry Blossom Tree" and "My Moonlight".