One of the most interesting things about Lixia is to be called a person.
On the birthday of Gao Yufen, the girl in Hangzhou, it was Lixia, and her memory of Lixia was particularly clear. In "Miscellaneous Memories of Mountain Dwellings", she recalled:
On the day of the beginning of summer, people should be weighed on a large scale every year. When weighing a person, he first took a bench, tied hemp rope at both ends, and hung it on the corridor beam, and the person who was weighed sat on the bench, and the manservant weighed it. Once, the maid who led my younger brother, the big fat man, made a joke again. As soon as she sat down on the bench, the rope was crushed by her weight. The stool fell to the ground, and the fat Wang Ma also fell to the sky solidly, but fortunately the stool was not hung too high, and the Wang Ma was not injured. Everyone laughed again.
It is a very joyful thing to call people, regardless of men and women, young and old, who can not be infected by the "legal weighing day" in this year? First of all, you see, does this look like a swing? No wonder Cai Yun of the Qing Dynasty wrote: "The wind opens the embroidery pavilion and raises clothes, but it is not a swing play." In order to hang the amount, the official scales are evaluated, and the thin and ring fat are evaluated. "The warm wind is blowing, the clothes are floating, and the swing is like a scale, the mood is there first, and the atmosphere is there first. Second, calling people is nothing less than a game social event. Accompanied by the readings of the scales, light or heavy, you gag, I joke, evaluate each other, laugh and laugh, so lively. It is better to be happy alone than to be happy in all, and this collective joy magnifies the joy exponentially.
Interestingly, today's "hot and hot" is to lose weight, but at that time "hot and hot" was to gain weight. In the old days, when materials were scarce, it was good for people to be fed, and being fat was considered healthier, which was also a reflection of the abundance of life. It is not for nothing that Chinese people call getting fat "fat". Feng Zikai has a painting of "I like to weigh a few catties this year", which is the name of Lixia. In the picture, a large wooden scale hangs from the beam of the house, a stool hangs from the scale hook, and a child is sitting on the stool weighing with both hands holding the scale rope. It is surrounded by men and women. On the right, an adult man is weighing flowers to see the weight. Lixia weighs people, although it is not just to weigh children, but especially to weigh children. Some parents will also play some harmless tricks, such as letting their children eat more before weighing, and some put stones in their children's pockets in order to gain weight and happiness.
Because of this, when the scaler beats the scales, the scales can only be dialed from the inside to the outside, that is, from the small number to the large number, not from the outside to the inside. That is, weight can only be gained, not lost. The scale man must also be able to speak, in today's words, to have high emotional intelligence. If you gain weight, it is called "fat"; If you lose weight, it is called "meat loss". The old man was blessed with a long life, and when he called the old man, he said: "The scale is eighty-seven, and the life is ninety-one." The important thing for the girl is to marry a good family, and when she called the girl, she said: "One hundred and five pounds, outsiders will come to the door." Don't be willing to be willing to be biased, the champion son has fate. The child's future is very important, and when he called the child, he said: "The scale is twenty-three, and the little officials will grow up to go out of the mountain." Don't make it difficult for the county officials of Qipin, and the three princes and nine kings are also easy to climb. "How auspicious, how to come.
Lixia is called a person, which can be said to be the ancient version of national weight monitoring. Qing Gu Lu's "Qing Jialu" recorded the summer customs, and its "people" was a cloud: "Every household is weighted by a large scale, and it is also called the beginning of autumn to test the barrenness in summer." There are also some places that extend the time span of weight monitoring from mid-summer to a year, such as Wu Manyun wrote in the preface of "Jiangxiang Festival Words": "Hangzhou customs, the beginning of summer, hanging large scales, men and women are called it, in order to try the barren of the year." Zhou Zuoren believed: "The south is bitter and hot, and the climate is humid, so people often sleep and eat in summer, called moth-eaten, and the custom of calling people arises." "Moth summer, also as a note of summer, a summer. The old saying in Ningbo also says: "Lixia is called a person, and you will not get sick in the coming year." "In any case, health is the theme song of Lixia.
So, when did Lixia call people originate? I'm afraid no one can give a definitive answer. In folklore, it is associated with the Three Kingdoms. There are different versions of the legend, but most of them point to one person: Adou. That's right, it's the Adou in "The Adou Who Can't Be Helped", Liu Bei's son. The most common version is: Adou was taken to Jiangdong and raised by his stepmother, Mrs. Sun. It's hard to be a stepmother, and the smart Mrs. Sun weighed Adou in front of someone. On this day, it is the beginning of summer. In the future, Lixia weighs it again every year to see how much Adou has gained weight, so as to show his dedication. Later, it was introduced to the people, and then became a custom.
As the wooden pole scale fades away in the years, Lixia people gradually fade out of people's lives. In 2016, Hangzhou's mid-mountain summer custom was officially inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as an important part of the "24 solar terms: the time knowledge system and its practice formed by Chinese through observing the annual movement of the sun". The beauty of Lixia has returned in another way, and one after another "Mid-levels Lixia Festival" has brought the reserved program of Lixia to life. The mahogany scale, which is more than 150 years old, sat on the scene, weighing people in the most traditional way, bringing the first solar term of summer to a climax. (Author: Ye Zi; Editor: Yang Shuo)