What else do you know about "June 1st" in addition to Children's Day?

Shui Han spoke Chinese

2024-06-01 11:01Posted in Beijing Knowledge Officer, Chinese teacher of the Experimental Middle School Affiliated to Beijing Normal University, creator in the field of education

Today is "Children's Day", write about those people, things and things on "June 1st".

Let's start with Children's Day, the full name of which is "International Children's Day". Where did it come from? The holiday is associated with a massacre during World War II.

In June 1942, the German fascists killed more than 140 male citizens over the age of 16 and all their babies in the Czech village of Lidice, and sent women and 90 children to concentration camps. All the houses and buildings in the village were destroyed by the German fascists. In order to mourn the Lidice massacre and all the children who died in the fascist war of aggression around the world, to oppose the torture and poisoning of children, and to protect children's rights, in November 1949, the International Democratic Women's Federation held a meeting of its board of directors in Moscow and designated June 1 as the International Children's Day every year.

Children's Day in mainland China, which was celebrated on April 4 every year in the early days, was established in 1931 at the suggestion of the Salesian Association of China. In December 1949, the Administrative Council of the Central People's Government issued a general decree abolishing the old Children's Day and making June 1 the Children's Day in the mainland, which was unified with the International Children's Day. The earliest Children's Day in China should have started in 1950. Most of the children who participated in Children's Day activities are at least 80 years old today.

Although it is titled "International", like "International Women's Labor Day" and "May Day", "International Children's Day" is only set on the day of "June 1" in some countries in the world.

After talking about the "June 1st" of "Children's Day", let's talk about other common "June 1st".

The most famous is the "61 Layman", which is a self-name of Ouyang Xiu, the leader of the Song Dynasty literary circle, in his later years. This self-name is a little later than the more familiar "drunkard". Why is it called "61 Layman"? Of course, it is not a "Children's Day Layman", about the origin of this self-title, Ouyang Xiu once made a special "Biography of a Layman on June 1st". It says:

The guest asked: "June 1st, what does it mean?" The layman said: "My family has a collection of 10,000 volumes, a collection of 1,000 volumes of gold and stone relics for three generations, a piano, a game of chess, and a pot of wine. The guest said: "It's for May Day, what's the matter?" The layman said: "With my one Weng, old between these five things, isn't it sixty-one?" ”

It turns out that this is Ouyang Xiu's refinement of a life course and the expression of unique feelings. Reading, appreciating monuments, playing the piano, playing chess, drinking, an old man is immersed in it, which is for "June 1st". Cultural people are just different, summing up these daily activities so vividly and interestingly, and beyond the world. Of course, if you want to understand Ouyang Xiu's mental journey in more subtle detail, it is not enough to listen to my paraphrase, but also to read "The Biography of the 61st Layman" in person.

In addition to Ouyang Xiu, a cultural celebrity, who calls himself "61 Jushi", in Lu Xun's novel "Social Opera", there is also a character related to "61", that is, "61 father-in-law".

However, it is obvious that the name "Liuyi Gonggong" will not be obtained from Ouyang Xiu's "Liuyi Layman". Because according to the description of "Social Opera", "they (Pingqiao villagers) are also 99% illiterate." "Father-in-law Liuyi is asking Brother Xun, "Can you eat beans?" After receiving an affirmative answer, he was very grateful, cocked his thumb, and said proudly, "This is really a person who has read books from a big town!" ...... "Therefore, in addition to the possibility of "putting a pot of wine", what collection of 10,000 volumes, a collection of 1,000 volumes of gold and stone relics from three generations, a piano, and a game of chess, all of which have nothing to do with this 61 father-in-law, he never thought of having such a way of life in his life.

So how did the name of the father-in-law come about? Lu Xun didn't say it in the novel, so we can only guess blindly.

Use the elimination method first. There is no doubt that the "June 1st" of "June 1st Father-in-law" has nothing to do with Children's Day, Lu Xun's novel "Social Opera" was created in 1922, and it will be almost 30 years before there is the "June 1st Children's Day" festival.

Bai Juyi has poems "Gift to Liu Nineteen" and "Drunken Gift to Liu Twenty-eight Envoys", among which "Nineteen" and "Twenty-eight" are ranked among brothers and sisters of the same generation. It is also unlikely that the "61st father-in-law" will rank 61st, and it is unlikely that there will be such a big family in that small Pingqiao Village.

Is it possible that the "father-in-law of Liuyi" was born with six catties and one tael? It's also unlikely. There is a nine-pound old lady in Lu Xun's novel "The Storm", and the verbal saying is "one generation is not as good as the next", and it is worth showing off when she is born nine pounds, but what is there to show off about six pounds? Even if it is called "six catties", it is impossible to call it "six one", there are zero and whole in the custom of naming here with the weight of the birth is very strange, incredible.

By the way, when I was a child, there was a blacksmith in the village called "Bajin", at that time I didn't understand why it was called "Bajin", and I couldn't understand one thing for a long time, why was it obviously a blacksmith, but it had the same name as the famous writer "Ba Jin"? Could it be that he also has some unknown supernatural powers? When I grew up, I realized that in that era, the child was born very large, which means that when she was pregnant, she was well nourished and her family was wealthy, which was a thing worth showing off.

Since none of the above is possible, how did the name "Father-in-law of Liuyi" come about? I guess it's about the same as the name of Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang was originally named "Zhu Chongba". The reason for the name "Chonghachi" (that is, Babachi) is because when he was born, the total age of his parents was eighty-eight.

Yu Yue, a scholar at the end of the Qing Dynasty, recorded in his notebook "Essays on Chun Zaitang": Xu Cheng'an (a scholar in the Qing Dynasty) accidentally saw a copy of "Cai's Family Tree", which was quite old, with a line of small characters written by someone in the Yuan system: "Those who are unemployed in the Yuan system are not allowed to take names, and they are only named after the line and the total age of their parents." It turns out that this method in the name of "the sum of the years and teeth of the parents" is a custom handed down from a system in the Yuan Dynasty. It is inferred from this that it is highly probable that the origin of the name of "Liuyi father-in-law" is that the total age of his parents at the time of his birth was sixty-one years old.

The above is the "June Day" of festivals and people, and the next step is the June Day of "things".

A kind of mud used in Taoist alchemy to seal the furnace is called "Liuyi mud". Ge Hong of the Jin Dynasty "Hug Puzi Jindan": "Use realgar water, alum stone water, Rong salt, brine salt, alum stone, oysters, red stone grease, talc, Hu powder, each dozens of catties, thinking that it is 61 mud (sealed)." So how did this "June 1st" come about? It is said to be taken from "Heaven is born of water, and the earth is sixty percent", which comes from the river map and Luo Shu that observed celestial phenomena in ancient times. Insert a sentence, the name of Tianyi Pavilion in Ningbo is taken from the sentence "Heaven is born of water, and the earth is sixty percent". It's a very complicated and mysterious thing, it's not a special study that doesn't need to be too clear, to put it bluntly, anyway, it is to gather the aura of heaven and earth, and then it can give full play to the unpredictable role.

There is also a drug recorded in Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica", also known as "Liuyi Mud", also known as "earthworm dung, earth dragon dung", which is the poop of earthworms. It is said that this drug can treat many diseases, such as fever malaria, urine blockage, swollen cheeks, centipede bites, severe knife wounds, etc., as for whether it really works, we have not tried it, and we dare not say it. I don't know where the name "June 1st" came from. Friends who know are welcome to leave a message for advice.

Lala has said so much, and finally I wish all children and adults a happy Children's Day. Not only children can celebrate Children's Day, but also adults. As long as you keep your mentality young, even if you are 61 years old, you can celebrate Children's Day, and the famous sentence of Internet celebrity says: "May you run away for half your life and still be a teenager when you return." ”

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