I was a kid in the 60s, and I was always looking forward to the Chinese New Year, because I could eat something good and wear a new set of clothes that my mother sewed. "Fried oil fruits", including steamed steamed buns, are a necessary New Year's goods, and the meat is rarely there, and you must go to the commune's "purchase station" to cut a few catties of pork with a meat ticket. The "etiquette" that I went to my relatives' house to get was a few steamed buns and avocets......
Go to relatives' houses to get steamed buns are also particular, generally take at least six, more than eight to twelve, there are old people's homes weighing two catties of sugar is the most luxurious "gift", when you go home, relatives can not let you go empty-handed, will be their own steamed bread or wreaths and other food back a few. At that time, I felt that relatives really had the "taste" of relatives, and that kind of kinship was strong and real, and everything contained the deep affection between relatives......
After the first day of the new year, they began to go to relatives, uncle's house, uncle's house, aunt's house, etc., these "bones are connected to the tendons" of relatives' homes must go, at that time it was a collective system, except for children, adults have to go to the production team every day to work, there are no special circumstances, usually rarely go to these relatives' homes, so to the New Year is a good time to go to relatives, the way to go relatives everyone has different characteristics......
Riding a "walking horse" string of relatives
In the depths of my memory, every time my eldest nephew (called grandfather's nephew in my hometown) came to my house, he rode his own "walking horse". Because his family belongs to Datan Village in Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, and he is good at horseback riding, the Tibetan people will hold a "horse race" every year, and all herdsmen who are good at horse riding will raise a "horse walking horse", which is domesticated by the herdsmen and specially used for grazing or participating in the "horse race". I like the "walking horse" very much, his horse is very strong, the hair is shiny, the special "saddle" is made of high-quality birch, cowhide, Tieden, and the saddle is also laid with a homemade Tibetan carpet mat, the cushion is woven with Tibetan characteristic patterns, and it looks good after his modification. One of the characteristics is to "show off" his riding skills and the walking horse, every time he arrives at the entrance of the village, he will take the soft short whip and whip it on his walking horse's butt a few times, "Boom ball...... "Boom ...... "shout a few times, and the horse will run quickly, and the horse will raise a puff of dust, and the people in the village will say that he is good at walking, in fact, everyone knows that he can ride a horse and not run all the way.
After arriving at my house, he unloaded the saddle, found the iron brush in my house and immediately brushed his horse, and then tied the horse to the trough himself, and then dug out a few bowls of watercress in his own coat and added it to the trough before entering the house, and greeted his grandfather, uncle, and father, and waited for the saddle after eating, and immediately rode on the horse when he went out, and then twitched a few times on the horse's buttocks, and the horse ran like a gust of wind, and disappeared after a while......
Tianzhu County "Jockey Club"
Drove the "donkey cart" to string relatives
My grandmother has to go back to her mother's house every Spring Festival, my grandmother's mother's house is a place called "coal ditch", the place is very small and located in a deep ravine, there are five or six families, more than 30 kilometers away from my house, but also over the mountains and mountains, there is no wide road, there is only a sheep intestine trail to take the interception, the only "spacious" road is a road that can only pass through the frame car. Before going out, my father or uncle put on the donkey cart, spread a piece of felt in the frame car, and then spread a mattress on the felt, and grandma and I sat in the rack car and wrapped the quilt and set off.
Coal ditch belongs to a small village in the original Gulang County Gancheng Commune, the origin of the village should be named after the coal produced there, because there is a coal mine called "Da'e Dam" in the original Gancheng Commune, when I was a child, the hometown people often drove their livestock there to camel coal, and the charcoal burned in the stove of the hometown people was camelized from this coal mine. The road leading to the coal ditch is not actually a road, but a long, winding river, in case of a flash flood, the road in the whole river will disappear, sitting on the donkey cart is very bumpy, and the car will be more walking, it will form a road, so the road in the river in the Spring Festival every year seems relatively smooth. Grandma's three nephews would stand on the doorstep of their house after the first day of the Lunar New Year, waiting for grandma's arrival......
Donkey carts
Eat a meal of "finger lamb"
"Hand grasping mutton" is the characteristic of our northwest, my uncle and grandfather have a group of sheep, my uncle and grandfather have three sons, among which the eldest father is the "shepherd", every year during the Chinese New Year Uncle and grandfather's family will slaughter a sheep, to my uncle and grandfather's house is indispensable to eat a meal of "hand grasp mutton" At dinner, my aunt and grandmother cooked the mutton, at that time I did not use chopsticks to grasp the mutton directly, the adults ate the mutton and came to a bowl of mutton mat potatoes, but every time I eat mutton, I will eat my little belly full, and I will not eat mutton mat potatoes again, because I can't eat it.
My grandmother usually lived in her mother's house for two or three days, during which my father took me to visit those families all day long, and those families were relatives, and every family would give me delicious food, such as jujubes, flower sugar, walnuts, peanuts, and ...... , I know that these snacks will not be common in the homes of ordinary people in that era, and they will only be willing to buy these things when it comes to the Chinese New Year. My father was about 10 years older than me and was very naughty, and we played every day as "Tuxing Sun"; my second father was studying in the middle school of Gancheng Commune at that time, and he didn't like to play and read in the house when he was idle; later, after graduating from high school, he became a soldier and became a worker, and as early as the 80s, he was transferred to the battalion level and arranged to work at the China Construction Bank; his father later became a worker in the Yumen oilfield, and now both of them have been retired for many years; and my eldest father has been a "sheepherd" for most of his life, and now he has been relocated to the oasis community of Gulang County for many years, and his life is very comfortable.
Hand finger lamb
Today's "New Year's Flavor", this kind of feelings, family affection, and human affection seem to be very light, as light as a blank piece of paper, plain and bland, there is no "color" to paint, if there is no benefit to themselves between relatives, most of them will not move around, to be honest, our generation is okay, and our descendants of this age I think what is human affection, family affection they don't seem to know, or understand but pretend not to understand, some relatives between the juniors almost do not know, and even individual immediate family juniors declare to sever relations with relatives. Today, when transportation is so developed, it is not only to go to relatives but also to go in a hurry, and return in a hurry. This is the disadvantage of "economic and social" development, people are living for interests, and all human feelings are built on the basis of the economy.
■ Original / Li Xiaoxian in Wuwei, Gansu 2024.02.07
[The original first picture comes from the Internet, and the infringement will be deleted]