Many years have passed, and every Mid-Autumn Festival, that kind voice will still ring in the ears, "Come and come, come here, worship the Moon Lady!" Grandpa touched the snow-white goatee and greeted us happily. Why worship the Moon Lady? I asked. The Moon Lady will bless everyone with peace and security, happy to eat and wear... The grown-ups say so.
I remember what a happy day it was. Early in the morning, adults began to get busy, busy with various foods for the reunion festival. After noon, on the large eight immortals table placed against the wall in the guest hall, the plum bottles, tea cups and other objects that were originally placed were all removed in the same way, and the adults carefully wiped this eight immortals table, and even the hollows of the carved tooth plates around the table were also to reach in with small cloth strips to remove the floating ash.
The patio was also exceptionally clean, with fallen leaves and dust swept away, and the granite floor tiles were washed with water to look white and shiny. The Eight Immortals Table was carried to the patio and placed in the direction where the moon rose first. The adults brought the same offerings to the table. Mostly seasonal fruits. There are watermelons, apples, persimmons, grapes, pomegranates, peaches, etc., all placed in a huge fruit pot, piled high. Several other plates contained pastries and dried fruits such as mooncakes, osmanthus cakes, and dates, and several blue porcelain bowls contained cooked edamame, taro, diamond horns, long-lived fruits, pearl rice, etc. There are many offerings, but meat dishes such as chicken, duck and fish are not available.
In the evening, people look at the sky, the sun is sinking, the faint moon is shyly showing its face, at this time the red candle is lit, and a large bunch of lit incense is inserted into the incense burner. The time for the moon has arrived. I saw the adults standing at the offering table in turn, their faces showing a look of devotion. Most of the fathers are bent over and prostrate, the aunts and widows are on their knees, and we children have to kneel down and prostrate, as if this is the rule.
Grandpa's cousin's niece, Jin Nanxiao, entered and exited with a gate of my house, and Ping Su liked me the most. I was only five or six years old at the time, and she told me to say to The Moon Lady, "Moon Lady, I want to grow up and be more beautiful!" "It is said that if you make such a wish, you will grow into a beautiful big girl and find a good in-law family in the future." I already know how to be shy, I closed my mouth and refused to say, and after praying, I slipped away with a cigarette. The adults on the side all laughed, and the mother smiled and shook her head slightly, "Die a little one can't be spoiled!" "Not to be spoiled" is the dialect of this place, afraid of embarrassment, not on the table.
In fact, on the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the most exciting thing is for us children, because we can play with rabbit lights. Rabbit lamps are generally made by their own adults, mostly with thin bamboo or lead wire tied into a rabbit-shaped frame, and then pasted with thin white paper around. Elaborate, and then use paper to cut a few circles of broken strips to stick to the rabbit lamp, which is considered to be rabbit hair. Which child holds a particularly good-looking rabbit lamp in his hand will be envied by the children around him. Children who do not have rabbit lights, borrowed from their friends to drag a drag, will also be excited to shine on their faces.
Solemn moon worship ceremonies are not done by every household. Almost half of the people who live in one of our houses are of the same surname. It's the same to know which house has set up the offering table, and to run a few steps to worship the moon. The door between the walls and doors of my house was always open, and as soon as the incense candles in the patio burned, the aroma overflowed, and there were villagers coming in and out. The children who led the rabbit lights on the outside field, led the rabbit lights to my house to roll and make a fuss. There is a large water tank in the patio, which stores rainwater on rainy days, and when it does not rain, it will bring well water to fill the water tank.
Some children suddenly found that the moon was also reflected in the water tank! So, the children scrambled to put their heads to the edge of the water tank, and one of the children picked up the water scoop and tried to scoop up the moon in the water tank, but where could they scoop it up? So, another child invented a way to play, scoop up a scoop of water, lift it high, a water line sprinkled into the water tank, a full moon in the water, dodge and dodge immediately become a pool of broken silver, and when the water waves gradually subside, it is another round of full moon. So repeatedly, the children enjoyed it until they were drunk by the adults. Later, when I read the story of "Monkey Fishing moon", I always laughed when I remembered this scene.
A scene from the Monkey Fishing Moon cartoon. Official promotional photos
The incense in the incense burner was about half burned, and the bright moon in the sky was getting rounder and rounder. Looking up, it seems to be very close to us. The patio was shrouded in moonlight, still lit, and the house gradually darkened, and at this time we began to eat the reunion dinner. The lights were turned on in the guest room and two tables were set up. The guests also arrived. The guests are all relatives or close friends of my family, many live in the city, because Grandpa is an elder, so every New Year's Festival, they have to gather here.
Some of the young guests were middle school students in my teens, and I still remember their names and appearances. The humorous and somewhat youthful Xiao Yong, the handsome-looking Qinghong who can speak the Tao, the shy XianLiang who is Sven, the thin and thin Tielin... I call them Brother So-and-So. They bowed respectfully to their elders and bowed to the moon in a formal manner. But they came to have another activity this time. In the Mid-Autumn Festival, in the countryside at night, the sound of cicadas is light, and crickets are sounded. The joyful songs of crickets everywhere in the grass, under the roots of the walls, and in the cracks of the fences, can they not attract these young people? They were ready for cricket catching, with bamboo tubes, mesh covers, flashlights, etc. in their pockets. After dinner, they greeted each other and walked out of the house, holding the moonlight and trying their hands on it. When I returned, I exchanged gains and was happy. Among the guests, the one I most want to see is Mina, the granddaughter of Kim Nam-won,who is the same age as me, and she wants to call me a widow. She came very early on the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, and she told me that she had learned to swim and showed me more than drawing poses. And I taught her to play the game of "Liang Shan Bo Zhu Yingtai Two Butterflies FlyIng Out".
After dinner, the fireworks on the table were extinguished. Everyone sorted it out, moved the eight immortals table to the center of the patio, placed a cup of tea bowl on the table, and selected a few fruits, and the old grandfather took out a tooth knife and cut the Cantonese mooncake. The moonlight shone brightly, the air was filled with endless sandalwood, as well as the fragrance of laurel trees and various fruits, and everyone moved bamboo chairs and stools out of the house and began to chat with the moon. Talk about the year and harvest, recall some past events, and worry about some relatives who cannot be reunited. Hearing the sound of insects in the courtyard, my mother touched the scene and taught us to sing the songs she had sung when she was a child: "The textile lady is sobbing, the golden bell is chirping, the insects are in concert, and the moon girl comes out to listen." The little brother who snuggled up in the arms of his mother and seemed to be asleep, heard the songs of his brothers and sisters, and opened his little eyes.
The moon was gradually rising, getting smaller, and the relatives were leaving. Everyone said goodbye, and when I heard that Mina was going to stay at grandma's house for a few days, I tightened her hand with joy. It wasn't until many years later that I heard from my mother about the unusual marriage of Mina's parents. Mina's mother, Yueying, is the only daughter of Jin Nan's widow, who is widowed early, and when her daughter is older, she has the idea of recruiting her son-in-law to enter the door. She took a fancy to a small carpenter who had come here to fix the brown bandages, and accepted him as a dry son. The little carpenter was naturally overjoyed. And Yue Ying refused to marry him, saying that she already had a crush and was the coach of the new swimming pool. She brainwashes her daughter with tears in her eyes until she promises her not to associate with the swimming coach again. So when the mother hurried to prepare for the marriage of her daughter, set an auspicious day, sent a post, and invited relatives and friends to drink happy wine. Who knew that the day before the wedding, the daughter actually escaped in the middle of the night.
The widow was so angry that she begged her to return from the search for Yueying. The clan went to the Xincheng swimming pool, and when they returned, they learned the words of Yueying's favorite Hongsheng: "Now the new society does not allow parents to arrange marriages, Yueying and I are free to love, and now we are married." The clan asked Hongsheng: Who of you is the matchmaker? Hongsheng pointed to the heavens and said, Our matchmaker is the old man under the moon! The widow was desperate when she heard it, and after that, the mother and daughter cut off contact for several years. It was not until Mina was three years old, under the persuasion of relatives and friends, that the widow accepted her daughter's family during the Mid-Autumn Festival of this year. And the Hongsheng brother I saw was so amiable and polite, the adult said that he had drunk foreign ink and spoke English. At the reunion table, he was so thoughtful to toast the elders, and the widow looked at her son-in-law and kept smiling.
In the 1950s, four generations of the family reunited on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival. (Xinhua News Agency file photo)
There are two or three times in my memory of such a grand moon worship scene, after the death of my grandfather in 1960, the family's Mid-Autumn Festival moon worship is no longer handled. After that, people gradually faded away from various traditional festivals such as the Mid-Autumn Festival. In the early 1980s, our village disappeared because of demolition. As the years passed, the world changed, and when the old house was demolished, my younger brothers and sisters and I also became our own families, moved around, and walked less with some of my grandfather's old relatives when he was alive.
After middle age, when I face the Mid-Autumn Festival, I often feel more sad, missing those elders who have gone away one by one, and also missing my relatives who have not passed away in the past. Some of the friends who played together in childhood and brought their relatives with them have long since disappeared, and now even if they meet each other, they should not know each other. It's sad. However, the family is like a big tree, the old leaves fall, the new leaves are stacked, and generation after generation, the big reunion gives birth to a small reunion. There should be no hate. Then be at peace with the encounter, light a heart incense on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, may the world spend a good full moon and less parting, and the people of Guotai will be more happy!
Column Editor-in-Chief: Huang Wei Text Editor: Luan Yinzhi
Source: Author: Xu Huifen