During the New Year's holidays, visiting relatives is our ancient and fine tradition. By visiting relatives, people can communicate with each other, strengthen contacts, and achieve information sharing; Through mutual complaints, the relationship between relatives and friends was deepened, and a more solid foundation was laid for everyone to help each other in the future.
When I was a child, I followed my mother to my grandmother's house on the second day of the Lunar New Year and went to my uncle's house to visit relatives for the New Year. Every time I went to a relative's house, my cousins would get together and play poker and chess. You can also receive the New Year's money from your grandmother and aunt, and then take the New Year's money to the supply and marketing cooperatives and spend it in a chic way.
On the third day of the Lunar New Year, my aunt usually brought her children to my grandfather and my father's New Year's greetings. In this way, I was happy with my cousins again.
The second to fourth years of junior high school are the peak period for visiting relatives. After the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, it is generally quiet, and there are many fewer people who go to relatives. Generally, under special circumstances, the second, third, and fourth years of junior high school did not go to the relatives who went to go again.
I remember one time, my aunt didn't come to pay my grandfather's New Year's greetings due to special circumstances. My sister-in-law was talking to my mother at my house and felt a little confused. My sister-in-law's son (my cousin) and I volunteered to see my aunt.
In this way, the two of us walked more than 20 miles, inquired about my aunt's village as we went, walked straight all morning, and found my aunt's house at one o'clock at noon. I was only twelve years old and my cousin was eleven.
After the two of us left, my mother and my sister-in-law felt more and more uneasy the more they thought about it, and they then left for my aunt's house.
It turned out that my aunt's mother-in-law was seriously ill, and my aunt couldn't leave. We stayed at my aunt's house for the night and walked home the next day.
After the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, I don't leave my relatives, and the atmosphere of the festival is a little weaker. The sense of loss in the hearts of our children cannot be described in words.
When we were born in the 60s and 70s, we were very keen on visiting relatives, which is where the year's hope lies; If you don't go to your relatives, it's embarrassing to say that you had a happy Spring Festival.
The problem is, today's post-90s and post-00s children not only seem to be not very enthusiastic about visiting relatives, but sometimes they also push back and participate very reluctantly; Parents want to ask them to go on their own, which is like:
The god of the king of the stove wants to eat sorghum syrup - he can't open his mouth
What is the reason for this?
First, the reason for distance.
It is true that distance produces beauty, but distance also produces helplessness.
Most of our post-60s and post-70s parents are in the same village, and most of our aunts are married in neighboring villages and towns, which are only a few miles or more than a dozen miles apart; Very few aunts marry to other counties, and those who marry to other cities are as rare as a rarity. In this way, it is very convenient for us to visit relatives and the cost is very low.
The three uncles of my lover are all from this village, and they can be walked all over in the morning. Both aunts are in town, and it doesn't take long to walk.
Although we have many brothers and sisters in the 60s and 70s, they are distributed all over the world; In one area, it is considered close, and many are in other places or even other provinces. In this way, it takes too long and the cost is too high to travel long distances with relatives, which makes it difficult for many people with poor driving ability to retreat.
Second, communications are well developed.
With the development of communication, the distance between people to keep in touch seems to be infinitely shortened.
In this way, everyone greets the New Year through telephone, WeChat and other situations, saving time and effort, and not wasting fuel money, so everyone is happy to use WeChat and telephone New Year's greetings.
Third, there are too few children, too few cousins, and relatives lack due attraction to children.
The children follow the adults to relatives, the adults exchange their experiences over the past year, and the children are to play together. Now it's basically an only child, there are too few children, just imagine that one or two children play together, it is better to play with four or five children. Besides, there are some games, and two people are not enough!
The inability to play games has made the children less interested in visiting relatives.
Fourth, the weakness of human affection.
We have to admit that human affection is getting weaker and weaker; As firecrackers are phased out, some customs are forgotten, and the flavor of the New Year is getting weaker and weaker. In this way, adults and children are reluctant to go to relatives. More often, it is out of etiquette that the younger generation goes to visit the elders in a courtesy manner.
Fifth, economic reasons.
We can't deny that in the past, especially in the sixties and seventies of the last century, many children were very active in visiting relatives, and there was an element of temptation to press the New Year's money. Children's parents usually rarely give pocket money, and during the New Year, not only parents give, but also grandparents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, aunts, uncles, uncles, uncles all give, this time the New Year's money received is like making a fortune, you can buy a lot of things that you usually want to buy but have no money to buy.
When I was a kid, I loved to read comic books, and at that time it was usually a dime to two dimes a copy. It's so cheap, I still can't afford it. Every Spring Festival, an uncle in our village buys a batch of comic books from the town's bookstore and sets up a sales point at home. I spent all day at his house, and I couldn't put down the beautifully printed comic books, but it took me a long time to save up enough money to buy one.
And as soon as the Chinese New Year is over, I received a few yuan of New Year's money, and I can buy dozens of copies. In order to buy more comic books, I was very active in following my mother to relatives.
Today's children have everything, and they won't take the initiative to go to relatives for the sake of New Year's money.
Sixth, the gap between the rich and the poor is huge, which is also a core reason.
This is one of the main reasons. Because the gap between the rich and the poor is too wide, it has brought a certain degree of difficulty and embarrassment to relatives.
Like some big families, some are multimillionaires, some are business editors, and some are unemployed workers. Then, when these different groups of people get together, their ideas and needs are very different, it is difficult to communicate.
This is also mainly due to the social climate. We post-60s and post-70s people talk together, and the most common thing to communicate is the plot and character deeds in literary works, such as in "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", who is the best in the world in martial arts? For example, if Guan Yu and Ma Chao go head-to-head, who can win in the end? If the level of cultivation is high, let's talk about Yue Fei, Li Qingzhao, Zhang Ji, Gorky, and so on......
Most of the discussions we discuss are cultural and spiritual, and the comparison is who has learned more and mastered the knowledge accurately. The result is often "a thousand glasses of wine for a confidant", and when they are separated, they are always reluctant to give up.
And the children of the post-90s get together and discuss most of the material things such as cars, houses, brands, etc. In this way, it is easy to form comparisons, and often because "the words are not speculative for more than half a sentence", they often break up unhappily when they are separated.
The poorer they are, the more reluctant they are to go to their relatives. If you are poor, it is easy to do it, just bring something good and cheap. However, if the poor go to the rich to visit relatives, it is easy to lose ground.
If you bring few gifts and low value, but the other party gives you more gifts in return and high value in the face of face, you will inevitably have an inferiority complex or a feeling of begging for food. Even if you have a strong psychological quality and are above board, and you don't think like this, how can you be sure that the other party doesn't think like this? If the rich throw away a high-priced gift, how can the poor exchange it at an equal price? In addition, those high-priced gifts are actually almost useless to the poor; If the poor go to the same price to return the gift, isn't that tantamount to extravagance and waste?
Let me give you an example.
During the Spring Festival the year before last, an old colleague of mine suddenly came to greet me and brought me two boxes of tea.
During our chat, he revealed to me, intentionally or unintentionally, that the tea he brought me was more than 10,000 yuan a box.
I was taken aback, and I was adamant that I wouldn't take it when he left. Because, although I like to drink tea, but for me, I am satisfied with drinking a box of tea for one or two hundred yuan. 10,000 yuan a box of tea, I can't drink any taste.
If I don't accept it, he will change his face, saying that if he doesn't accept it, he will have no face to go home. I had no choice but to accept it.
However, I remembered that people said that this tea is more than 10,000 boxes, and I can't stop it, I have to pay a return visit.
So, I had to buy two bottles of Moutai + two Chinese cigarettes + a box of fruit (more than 3,000 in total), and brought a box of tea leaves he gave me to visit his home. Of course, he was overjoyed. But doesn't this mean that I spent 3,000 yuan to buy him a box of tea?
As a laid-off worker, I drink a box of tea for 3,000 yuan (half a catty), isn't this a sin?
Therefore, when the gap between the rich and the poor is too wide, it becomes more and more difficult for relatives to leave. If the poor take the initiative to go to the rich relatives, they may be seen as having a plan, which will interfere with the rich to a certain extent; The rich have a lot of people, a lot of entertainment, and they are busy, and generally have no time to deal with poor relatives.
We have to admit: In real life, there are too few people who become the director of the hall like Qi Tongwei and spare no effort to do things for the villagers.