2024 Homecoming Observation - Spring Festival Ancestor Worship "Rules", Why Don't Parents Want Their Children to Learn It?

He Xia Yan, a graduate student of the College of Humanities and Social Development, Northwest A & F University

In my hometown of L City, Yunnan Province, everyone needs to go to the ancestral grave to worship their ancestors on the first day of the Qingming Festival and the Spring Festival, which is commonly known as "going to the grave" here. The Spring Festival "going to the grave" needs to buy the required paper money, incense, colored "Gao Lei" (a tribute that is ground with rice and then added to the pigment solidification), glutinous rice, pig's head, chicken, fish, fruit, and then cook the pig's head, chicken, and fish the night before the ancestor worship, and prepare 10 plates of tribute dishes, and then get up early in the morning on the day of the ancestor worship to fry the colored "Gao Lei" and the glutinous rice used as a sacrifice "Baba", prepare tea, wine, melons and fruits, and need to take two heavy tributes to the ancestral tomb at about ten o'clock in the morning. Our ancestral graves are basically on the mountain, some family ancestral graves are on higher and steeper mountains, it takes more than half a day to worship ancestors, and my ancestral graves also need to climb a mountain for more than ten or twenty minutes, and it still takes a lot of effort to carry two large baskets of tributes up the mountain. As I got older and older, coupled with the fact that I was still in school and had holidays, I naturally became the "main force" in preparing the Spring Festival sacrificial ritual supplies, and gradually became familiar with how to buy tribute and how to make sacrificial dishes, and I also deeply experienced the hard work. On the first day of the Lunar New Year this year, as usual, I was preparing tributes on the way to the ancestral grave, and my aunt suddenly chatted with me: "I really don't want your generation of children to learn our old sacrificial traditions. "For the aunt who has always admired traditional culture, why don't you want our generation to continue this traditional rule of ancestor worship?

1. Worship ancestors as a child

For as long as I can remember, I have to go to the "grave" every year during Qingming and the first day of the Lunar New Year , This is a happy thing for children, bring the snacks bought by their parents, go up the mountain and basically rely on the elders to carry it, kowtow to the ancestors, exchange snacks with the family friends, the ancestor worship ceremony is over, when I was a child, I was still looking forward to worshipping the ancestors, because for children it is a nature to go out and go out, but I still vaguely remember when I was a child, my grandfather carried me up the mountain to worship the ancestors when I couldn't stop wheezing and coughing and my father's wet back when I carried me up the mountain.

The ancestral graves of the aborigines in the center of L are basically on the same mountain as my ancestral graves, in my memory, in the early days, everyone was carrying several back baskets, carrying children to climb the mountain to worship their ancestors, different families in the family are preparing tributes separately, everyone will bring the tributes to the ancestral grave after they will secretly "compare" who does the norms and exquisite, the elders who do well will not hesitate to praise "the preparation is really good, really understand the rules", if anyone misses something missing, everyone will also put forward it without hesitation:" Next time, you have to follow the rules and get ready." For family members, as long as they get married and start a family alone, they must prepare a separate tribute, and there can be no omissions, otherwise it will be a break in the "rules", which is a very faceless thing in the family.

Network map: Abundant ancestor tribute

Every year, parents always need to work for a few weeks for the Spring Festival and Qingming ancestor worship ceremony, run various markets in advance to prepare tributes, and need to stay up all night to make dishes the night before going up the mountain to worship ancestors, and get up early the next day to count and pack up the tributes and put them in the back basket, and then climb the mountain to worship the ancestors. But in the impression that my parents and relatives have never complained about this, when passing by other people's ancestral graves, if they see that other people's ancestral graves only sacrifice a bouquet of flowers, the grandmothers will shake their heads and denounce and sigh: "This family descendants are unruly!" "This ancestor was really wronged. ”

2. Broken "rules"

In recent years, during the Qingming and Spring Festival "going to the grave", there have been more and more families holding a bouquet of chrysanthemums to easily go up the mountain, and there have been more and more people who sell chrysanthemums in these two festivals, and there are obviously fewer people who are still carrying heavy baskets to "go to the grave", the most common is to bring a few of the simplest and most direct purchases of tribute, such as paper money, incense, and then bring a bouquet of chrysanthemums to worship the ancestors. The bouquet chrysanthemums are really good, and it is easy to go up the mountain, and there is no need to get up early to prepare a table of tributes. ”

Network map: Simple bunched chrysanthemums to worship ancestors have become a new fashion

Nowadays, most families, including my family, have not actually prepared tributes to the grave in strict accordance with the "rules", and many complex tributes such as "ten dishes" have not even been remembered by me, and this rule is no longer a shackle that must be done, and many of my families composed of young couples of the same generation have begun to take only chrysanthemums to "go to the grave", and no one has made irresponsible remarks about this "unruly", and even the mothers who keep this "rules" are increasingly feeling this "rules" It's really a bit cumbersome, and I don't want my children's generation to continue this "hardship".

No one has ever deliberately broken this "rule", but this "rule" is like an old object, which is gradually eliminated by the times and slowly replaced by new objects. In my opinion, there are three reasons for this: First, the fast-paced life of modern times has gradually squeezed the time and cost of the younger generation to pay for ancestor worship. Almost all of my cousins of the same generation are working, with the modern pace of work getting faster and faster, the work pressure is getting bigger and bigger, coupled with the fragmentation and rapid transformation of time and space under the fast pace of life, the younger generation is basically still working in the unit the day before the ancestor worship, and the holiday arrives immediately to go to the ancestor worship, especially like today's Chinese New Year's Eve work, the day before the ancestor worship my cousin is even working in the field, the latest high-speed train home on the day to worship the ancestor for the New Year. In today's rhythm of the times, it is almost impossible for young people to prepare for ancestor worship weeks in advance while juggling work, and basically these tributes are prepared by the mothers. So for families that no longer have elderly people in their families who can prepare for ancestor worship in advance in their hometowns, the younger generation can naturally only choose to bring a bouquet of chrysanthemums from Jane to worship their ancestors. Second, the grandmothers who adhered to this "rule" the most have gradually stopped participating in the rituals, and the "soft constraints" from the family, as I described earlier, have gradually disappeared. Ancestor worship requires climbing a mountain to go to the ancestral grave, which is a test of physical strength for our young and strong generation, and it is impossible for the members of the grandmother's generation who are already seventy or eighty years old in the family. In fact, the people of the mother's generation are generally enlightened, understanding that the younger generation does not understand these "rules", and thinks that it is enough for the younger generation to have the intention of worshipping ancestors, and the ceremony is not the point, and the people of the mother's generation have gradually simplified the traditional and complicated ancestor worship rituals, and the traditional ancestor worship ceremony was originally based on the family authority and ethics to a certain extent, and this "shackle" does not exist, and everyone is more willing to choose a relaxed way to "go to the grave". Third, the inspiration of the peer group and the convergence of the general environment are also the key factors in the ideological transformation of the mothers. Just like when I was a child, everyone obeyed the rules, and now many families "go to the grave" have begun to easily bring chrysanthemums with all members, and the mothers who are carrying heavy tributes are difficult to be moved to see the changes in the peer group, plus now the chrysanthemum ancestor worship has become a kind of "popular" among young people to worship their ancestors, and the homeopathy has also become a sign of "keeping up with the progress of the times and the trend of young people" in the mother's generation, and the mother's generation began to take the lead in chrysanthemum worship, and it is only a matter of time before our younger generation gradually forgets the complicated traditional ancestor worship ceremony. In general, the tradition of ancestor worship should not be forgotten, but the rituals should indeed be diversified, whether it is the gradually simplified ancestor worship rules or the newer trend of online ancestor worship, in the new rhythm of the times, it is enough to remember and commemorate ancestors with rituals that are more suitable for the footsteps of modern people.