"Nephew beats lanterns - take care of uncles", the Chinese pay attention to playing lanterns. Lanterns were originally an indispensable daily necessities in life, and lanterns were inseparable from home lighting and walking on the road. People are given lamps by their uncles from birth. Buy lights, send lights, and send all lights, and when the daughter grows up, she will also accompany her uncle to marry and send lights. The lamp is endowed with philosophical ideas in the lives of the people and illuminates their lives. It is only natural that the most important lantern sending is connected with the most important festival - the Spring Festival. Playing lanterns has also become the most distinctive representative of the New Year.
The New Year's festival is a celebration of lanterns, and the New Year begins with buying lanterns and hanging lanterns.
Celebrate the New Year, welcome the New Year, receive Baifu, Na Qianxiang, people who have worked hard for a year put down their moods, and are planning for the happiness of the coming year, pinning their hopes on the coming year, drawing an end to a beautiful year, and opening hope for a happy coming year. Sticking Spring Festival couplets and hanging lanterns have become the first major event of the New Year. When buying New Year's goods, writing Spring Festival couplets and buying lanterns is an important thing.
In shopping malls and markets before the Spring Festival, colorful New Year's goods are piled up on the streets and containers. Red, green, and green, fancy Spring Festival couplets and lanterns decorate the streets of the bazaar with joy. The business owner put the water cup under the tree and put it in the lunch box that was opened on the stool, and the food was already cold before eating, but everyone was energetic and attracted customers, packed goods and collected money, and was tirelessly busy.
After purchasing goods, the trunk of the car is stuffed with all kinds of New Year's goods. Before going home, the last important work is to paste New Year's pictures, write Spring Festival couplets, and buy lanterns. So I found a secluded place, parked the car, and walked towards the red, green, and green Victory Street.
From the 23rd day of the lunar month, Shengli Street is filled with red Spring Festival couplets and lanterns. On both sides of the street, the tung trees have ropes drawn from them, and on the ropes are various couplets, blessing characters, Chinese knots, and lanterns of different sizes and shapes. There are all kinds of palace lanterns, lanterns, lotus flower lanterns, zodiac signs, cars, and rocket-style portable lanterns. The different music of various lights sounded lively, and the festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival began.
After carefully selecting the auspicious Spring Festival couplets, the red lanterns in front of the house will also be replaced with new ones. At a glance, a pair of palace lanterns with bright yellow beards were selected. The boss said, "Good eyesight! So I happily bought it. And the most important thing is that you must buy a lamp for your little nephew, which is an indispensable exquisiteness. At the recommendation of the boss, I picked a portable lamp in the shape of a horse that can walk, and I didn't care about counting the money, so I provoked my daughter-in-law to keep playing in my hand.
"Give, give, give, look at your nephew's lamp, look at you like that! But it's still fun!" the woman happily went to the car door and got into the car, and the car started up and merged on the way home from the city.
In the afternoon of the Chinese New Year's Eve, from the city to the countryside, every family has to put up Spring Festival and hang lanterns. The atmosphere in the countryside is much livelier than in the city. The men, women and children of the gong and drum team in the village have already sounded several times when they enter the wax moon. Sticking couplets and hanging lanterns must have gongs and drums to help the fun, and the long bent drumsticks fly up and down around the old drums, and the cymbals and bronze instruments are deafening, and the field is opened at the door.
As soon as the drum sounded, the new couplet was put up by the master's hand on the wall, and the door wall was squarely affixed under the direction of the neighbor, and the old lantern was removed, and the new lantern was hung on the gatehouse. The three-way drum sounded, gifts were given, and a whip was released. The red cannon skin, and the red and glamorous Spring Festival couplets on the door wall were illuminated by the big red palace lamp in front of the door, and the red and bright New Year entered the courtyard.
When the lights are turned on, the red lanterns illuminate the streets, reminiscent of the movie "The Red Lantern Hangs High". Nowadays, people are all hanging red lights, and life is prosperous.
Business people can't stay idle, and just after the second day of the Lunar New Year, business on the streets is busy. There are lantern stalls at intersections and in front of shops. The lanterns hung in a pile of red and bright, and from a distance, they were as dazzling as a fire. The lantern sellers happily collected the money and loaded the goods, and the people who bought the lanterns were overjoyed.
The New Year's lanterns began on the third day of junior high school. It doesn't matter what you buy to eat and drink when you go to relatives, the nephew catches it first to see what kind of lamp his uncle bought. The child's mother also helped on the side: "I don't dare to break the light in my uncle's house." "In the newlywed home, the mother's family came to send the lamp to buy a red lantern and a small egg lamp, commonly known as the "lamp pendant", which means that the early birth of a noble son, this year to add Ding imports. The nephew is a baby and is still in the arms of an adult, and the young mother is running on the ground with the music lamp that his uncle has bought, teasing the child and giggling constantly. Children who are a few years older can't wait for dark, so they noisily prepare to light candles and lanterns.
The "test lights" that were supposed to start on the thirteenth day of the first lunar month started early just after the children's constant request. Finally, when it got dark, the children all knocked out the lanterns out of the door.
The lighting of the lantern is determined by the attached candle. The attached candle is made of a wooden stick wrapped with cotton to make a wick, and it is pierced through a small round hole in the thin wire under the lantern, and a half-cut radish can be dropped under the stick. If the candle is a thread twist and there is no stick, the bottom of the lantern should be processed. The bottom of the lantern is generally made of cardboard or wooden boards, using red-hot wire on the stove, drilling three holes in the wooden board, threading the wire of the lantern through it, and dripping wax juice on the bottom of the lantern to stick it on.
Candles stuck to the bottom of the lantern tend to tip over, and the wax of the sticks tends to tip over, and if you are not careful, the lantern will catch fire. When they saw the flames coming up, the younger children were frightened and overwhelmed, and the more daring ones went to put them out, and they were busy for a long time, but they still couldn't put it out. Seeing the regret of his companions, he took the children whose lanterns had been burned by the fire and went to play with their own lanterns.
People in the city also light lanterns during the New Year. The newlyweds took the lantern, deliberately hung it on the balcony, pulled the electric light, and looked downstairs, they could see the same, and the red light sprinkled all over the balcony, adding a bit of romance. There are children in the living room, put out all kinds of electric portable lights, and turn on all of them to play for a while. Even if you go downstairs to play, you have to be accompanied by an adult, and all kinds of colorful lights and music are lively in the square downstairs.
The New Year is the Lantern Festival, go out to see the lights during the day, all kinds of lantern exhibitions, lantern festivals, and lantern riddle guessing activities are colorful, and come back at night and start to play lanterns at home, anyway, every day is a lamp.
The New Year is almost over, the adults begin to prepare for work, and the smell of the New Year has become lighter. For the children, the fifteenth night of the first lunar month is the climax of the New Year.
The children of the village lit their lanterns and walked around the moonlit streets of the village over and over again, chanting almost the same nursery rhymes they had learned from their parents. The red sweater or padded jacket, the red hat and the little face that is red by the light are full of happiness in the celebration.
On the night of the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, pay attention to "touching the lamp". Enough of the lanterns, the New Year is over, and it is time to go to school tomorrow, and when you have fun tonight, you will touch the lanterns and end the New Year. So the children all went to play with their friends with lanterns, and then went to the village to find someone to touch the lanterns.
"Have you had enough?"
"Enough. ”
"Let's touch it, then. ”
Carefully touch the lanterns together, sometimes several times before they catch fire. Those who are on fire are not annoyed, they throw the lantern and turn their heads to see the excitement of the lamp; those who do not touch the fire are like a general who has won a battle, challenging and looking for the target left or right; and those who are reluctant to touch the lantern blow out the lantern and follow others to see the excitement. It was not until the end of the lantern party that the adults of each family kept urging at the door, and the children reluctantly went home, and the New Year was officially over.
The big red palace lamp hanging outside the gate is bright red and bright to be lit up all night, and it is festively dressed up in life. Just wait for the next Chinese New Year's Eve, replace the new palace lanterns, and start a new lantern and touch the lantern.
About author:Li Feng, formerly known as Tang Yong, male, born in 1972, graduated from Shaanxi Institute of Education, majoring in Chinese language and literature, member of the Chinese Prose Literature Association, signed writer of the cradle of Shaanxi writers, member of the Shaanxi Prose Literature Association, member of the Xi'an Writers Association, director of the Yanliang District Writers Association of Xi'an City, member of the Guanshan Literary Creation Base of the Shaanxi Writers Association, member of the Gao Jianqun Changshan Creation Base of the Shaanxi Writers Association, is now engaged in senior management of the enterprise, likes literary creation, and writes mostly in prose. Fun Facts". After the texts such as "Faint Corn Fragrance, Strong Homesickness" were recited with music, they received excellent responses on Himalayan Radio, etc., and articles such as "Lying on the Haystack and Watching the Stars" were published by online platforms such as "Daqin Digest". The essay "Hometown Interest" was published in the newspaper "Yan Liang Today", and some works were included in the anthology "Wind and Clear Water and Flowers on the Moon", "Breeze and Night Rain" and "Selected Contemporary Chinese Classic Prose".
Editor: Zhanyi|Review: He Yi Source: Yan Liang Literature