The weekend is the eve of Halloween, which is the ghost day of foreigners. Do you have any plans to go to which amusement park? For us, Halloween is an excuse for everyone to go to all kinds of play, and naturally there are no taboos.
But the older generation will always have a lot of taboos, and it will be special for us. For example, even if the umbrella brought back from the outside is wet, it cannot be opened inside the house to dry. Why? Because the superstitions of the older generation will bring the "filth (referring to ghosts) outside" into the home.
This superstitious taboo actually originated from a story of revenge of a powerful ghost that once caused a sensation in the provinces, Hong Kong, Macao and even Southeast Asia in modern times, which is the famous "big trouble Guangchanglong".
Guangchanglong is the name of a grain and oil daily grocery store, founded in Guangzhou in 1887, semicolons have spread all over the Pearl River Delta, through the late Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China and the Republic of China, has a history of more than 100 years. Kwong Chang Lung moved to Hong Kong in 1927 and obtained commercial registration in Hong Kong in 1978.
▲ Guangchanglong, image source network
It is understood that this long-established brand is still in operation, and now it has also opened an online sales channel. Now there is also a Guangchanglong warehouse mall in Dongshankou, Guangzhou, but I don't know if it has anything to do with the old one in Hong Kong.
As for the old site of Guangchanglong in Guangzhou, the older generation said that it was in the thirteen lines area, but it no longer existed.
The reason why the haunted story of "Making a Big Fuss About Guangchanglong" has become the collective memory of many older generations is not only because the characters involved have names and surnames, but also because the places involved are also well known to people at that time, and more importantly, the twists and turns of events are bizarre and extremely frightening.
The story of "Making a Big Fuss about Guangchanglong" took place at the end of the Qing Dynasty.
A dusty woman named Liao Xiaoqiao, because she is tired of her laughing career, often pays attention to finding a good son-in-law who can be entrusted for life, hoping to be good as soon as possible.
Among the many benefactors, she selected a Ruyi Langjun named Zhao Huai'an, and made a white-headed appointment with each other under the moon before the flower.
Who knew that Zhao Huai'an originally had no intention of marrying at all, and his false intention of being attentive was nothing more than a plan to make money. After the two stayed in an inn in the provincial city of Guangzhou, Zhao Huai'an suddenly had a bad heart, a bad heart, one did not do, two did not stop, not only sought wealth for Liao Xiaoqiao, but also killed his life, killed Liao Xiaoqiao in the hotel room, and secretly buried his body under the bed.
Zhao Huai'an took the rich assets accumulated by Liao Xiaoqiao in his career as a joker and opened a grocery store in the provincial city of Guangzhou, called Guangchanglong, and since then the business has been gushing and the money has been rolling in. As a result, Zhao Huai'an married a woman from a large family.
Liao Xiaoqiao was killed and died tragically because he had no relatives and no reason, and his body was buried under the bed in the hotel room, and no one knew. However, she has been wronged, although she wants to go to Guangchanglong to avenge the negative heart of the snow, but when she stepped out of the hotel, she was either shocked by the city god of the capital city god temple, or blocked by the door god of Guangchanglong, and had to turn back.
▲ Guangzhou Capital City God Temple, picture source Zhangzhugang
It wasn't until a scholar named Liu Junxian went to the inn to stay, liao Xiaoqiao waited for the opportunity to take revenge. Although Liu Junxian is a reader, he has repeatedly failed the exams, and he can only sell rouge needles and threads along the street for a living on weekdays. It is said that Liao Xiaoqiao also had a lot of friendship before his death.
This night, Liu Junxian was lying on the bed, and suddenly a gust of wind blew up from under the bed, followed by the ghost of Liao Xiaoqiao appearing in front of his bed, telling her the story of her death in tears, and begging Liu Jun to help her avenge her hatred.
Liu Junxian saw the ghost at first sight, frightened and scattered, but later saw that Liao Xiaoqiao did not have malicious intentions, and his mood gradually calmed down, and when he heard Liao Xiaoqiao complain about injustice, he could not help but feel sympathetic, and driven by a sense of justice, he resolutely agreed to do his best to help her avenge her hatred.
Liao Xiaoqiao asked Liu Jun to carry the umbrella to Guangchanglong, and she hid in the umbrella, and told him not to open it along the way, and to keep whispering her name, so that she could avoid the city god and the door god and enter Guangchanglong.
Liu Junxian acted according to the plan, pretended to negotiate business, brought the umbrella into Guangchanglong, and deliberately left it behind when he left. Zhao Huai'an did not know that there was deception, and when he closed the shop at night, he saw an umbrella that he did not know who it was, opened it (in the old days, people would write so-and-so or a certain business name in the umbrella as an identification), Liao Xiaoqiao appeared from the umbrella, and after angrily reprimanding Zhao Huai'an in front of Zhao Huai'an's wife, he strangled Zhao Huai'an to death with a red Luo three-foot life, thus avenging snow hatred.
▲ Villain book at that time, image source network
The key to the whole story is the umbrella that is brought into the house and opened, if it is not the umbrella's cover, the ghost cannot pass through the city god and the door god. This is also the origin of the taboo that the elders in the old days warned not to bring an umbrella into the house and open it.
Is the story of "Making a Big Fuss About Guangchanglong" really true?
Today, the descendants of Guangchanglong also have an old photo of the Guangzhou pier, the Guangchanglong outside the pier, the underground is a shop, the upstairs lives, you can imagine when the wind rises, the floor slab creaks, the timid people think that it is not necessarily haunted.
However, the founder of Guangchanglong is not Zhao Huai'an, but Huang Tingfang, and the current boss, Huang Xirun, is the fifth generation.
▲ The fifth generation of Huang Xirun, the source network
Therefore, although the story of "Making a Big Fuss About Guangchanglong" has a board and an eye, it is not true, but it first appeared in the fictional creation of the wooden fish song "Ghost Snow Hate", it is said that the author of the wooden fish song and Huang Xirun's uncle are acquainted, making up such a ghost story to make a joke, but it makes Guangchanglong known to everyone. Today, such jokes could be prosecuted for violating the right to commercial reputation.
What is the Wooden Fish Song?
Muyu song, also known as singing wooden fish and touching fish song, is a Cantonese opera art, in the Tang Dynasty was Buddhism in order to facilitate the use of the form of religion to the general public, and later gradually integrated with local folk songs and folk songs, appeared in Guangzhou and the Pearl River Delta region in the late Ming Dynasty, widely circulated in the folk.
Wooden fish song was originally sung as a cappella, there is no oral confession, there is no instrument accompaniment, the song body, beat free, the cavity tone is simple and simple, generally according to the singing words of natural chanting, no need to learn art from the teacher. In the Pearl River Delta region, there were professional wooden fish singers, male artists called 瞽 (Cantonese spelling gu2, homophonous with the word "ancient") division, female artists called 瞽姬.
▲ Wooden fish song, picture source Guangdong Provincial People's Government Network
"瞽" in ancient Chinese means "blind", which shows that most of the people who sang wooden fish songs in the past were blind, and with this performance skill, begging for tips and living off.
Because the performers were blind, the wooden fish songs were mostly improvised or sung according to memory, and it was not until the end of the Qing Dynasty that the written record of the wooden fish book was developed.
▲Wood fish engraving, image source network
We now find the "Ghost of Snow Hate" engraved by Wentang in Guangzhou at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the signature is Dragon Boat Song, the life of Dragon Boat Song is unknown, but it should be the stage name of a master, and whether the story of "Big Trouble Guangchang Long" is his original, or he collects and organizes, or recreates, it is unknown.
After the wooden fish song also derived the dragon boat song (the name of the dragon boat song may be related to the dragon boat song), gradually evolved into the southern tone, these opera performance forms that have existed in the province of Hong Kong and Macao for a long time, for the current province of Hong Kong and Macao after the 80s has been quite strange, let alone the post-90s and post-00s.
But speaking of the TV series "Xiaobao and Kangxi" broadcast by TVB in 2001, and the TV series "Big Handsome Brother" broadcast by TVB in 2017, the protagonist Zhang Weijian often sang in the play: "The cool breeze is happy, the autumn moon is boundless, and the mood of my sijiao is like living like a year, although I am not tied to the Yushu Linfeng, dashing and handsome, but I have a broad mind to strengthen the strength of the arm! ", everyone may have an impression. This lyric is actually the opening part of Nan Yin's "Ketu Autumn Hate".
With the rise of Cantonese opera with richer performance forms and layers, wooden fish songs, dragon boat songs, and nanyin have gradually withdrawn from the historical stage.
Du Huan, who died in Hong Kong in 1979, is considered to be the last master of Dishui Nanyin (Dishui is a Bu Gua term, Cantonese people used to call blind people do Ah Shui), he was born blind, tragic, wandering in the province of Hong Kong and Macao, selling singing for a living, before his death, he performed at Radio Television Hong Kong, and also sang at the City Hall Theatre, disciple Tang Jianyuan recorded an eight-centimeter tape for him, leaving some of his audio materials and lyrics, becoming a precious material for people to study Nanyin in the future.
▲ Du Huan, the source network
The story of "Making a Big Fuss about Guangchanglong" can be widely spread in The province, Hong Kong and Macao, and it is inseparable from the performance forms of wooden fish songs, dragon boat songs, and nanyin, which were popular with the general public at that time, coupled with the emergence of radio stations in the Republic of China era, such programs were often broadcast, which also enabled this story to be further disseminated.
At that time, the general level of education of the general public was not high, and the stories broadcast by the radio stations, the place names and store numbers in them were true, and the characters also had names and surnames, so it was naturally easy for many people to believe the original fictional story.
Reading back the original story of the Wooden Fish Book "Yin Soul Snow Hate" (Big Trouble Guangchanglong), if summed up in the current words, is the story of a scumbag who seeks wealth and kills a woman who has lost her feet, and the ghost of a lost woman has successfully avenged with the help of poor dick silk, and finally borrowed the corpse to return the soul and the poor dick silk to live a happy life.
▲Source watermark
This story structure and character setting are very similar to the short stories popular since the Tang Dynasty, especially the Ming Dynasty, Jiang Fang's "Legend of the Tang Dynasty", Feng Menglong's "Cautionary Tales", and Pu Songling's "Liaozhai Zhiyi", there are a large number of stories about the love and hatred of beautiful prostitutes (or fox immortals) and poor students, in addition to expressing the feelings of idiot men and women, of course, there are also some moral indoctrination significance. After watching "The Biography of Huo Xiaoyu" and "Du Shiniang's Angry Sinking Treasure Chest", and then watching "Yin Soul Snow Hate", it has a more déjà vu feeling.
The reason why the story of Guangchanglong in "Ghost snow hate" has been circulated in the province, Hong Kong and Macao regions to this day, in addition to the reasons we mentioned earlier such as the background of the story and the emergence of radio stations, generations of creators have played a key role in recreating in different eras.
As early as the early years of the Republic of China, "Ghost snow hate" has been adapted into Cantonese opera "Big Trouble Guangchanglong", the repertoire is still performed today, and the emergence of the movie also provides a new carrier for the story of "Big Trouble Guangchanglong".
In 1937, the black-and-white Cantonese feature film "The Revenge of Guangchang Long" starring Liao Mengjue, Hua Yingrong, Chen Lili and Huang Chushan was released, and the Hong Kong Sanhe Company, when promoting it, said that the film was based on a real event that happened in the second arch of Xiaobeimen in Guangzhou during the Guangxu years. Because there was no advertising regulation at that time, this may also be an important factor for many people at that time to regard "making a big fuss about Guangchanglong" as a real person.
After World War II, Cantonese feature films developed rapidly (for an introduction to the historical development of Cantonese feature films, see our previous articles), many of which were also based on the theme of "The Great Trouble in Guangchanglong", which was rewritten and remade.
In 1949, Zheng Mengxia, Liu Kexuan, Yi Qiushui and Ma Ying starred in "Big Trouble Guangchanglong", which was more faithful to the original story. In 1952, "Singing Guangchanglong", starring Liang Xingbo, Xiao Yanfei, Lin Jiao, and Chen Luhua, was changed to Liao Xiaoqiao pretending to be dead, and then pretending to be a ghost to take revenge on Zhao Huai'an; in 1957, "Dumb Guy Meets Ghost" starring Liang Xingbo, Violet Lian, and Liu Kexuan changed the story to a funny comedy.
The most well-known film and television works of our generation are the 1993 color Hong Kong-made film "Big Trouble Guangchanglong" directed by Chen Guo and starring Zheng Danrui, Wu Dawei, Tao Junwei and Zhikezi Aoyama, and the 1997 TVb24 episode TV series "Big Trouble Guangchanglong" directed by Yang Jinquan and starring Zhou Haimei, Lin Jiadong, Guo Shaoyun, Chen Qitai and Deng Zhaozun.
▲ TVB version of the "Big Trouble Guangchanglong" image source watermark
These two Hong Kong-made film and television works have made major changes to the original story to be close to the main audience groups at that time, such as changing the place where the story takes place from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, and the era from the late Qing Dynasty to the 40s to the 50s, and the names and occupations of the original characters have also been changed, but the basic framework of the original story is still retained.
The historical era is changing, the way of communication is changing, and the form of performance is changing, but the story of an infatuated woman meeting a negative person can still be resonated after telling it for thousands of years, no wonder Huo Zun and Chen Lu's feelings are related to Weibo, which has aroused the attention and fierce debate of many young men and women.
Dear friends,
What other taboos have you heard of by the older generations?
Welcome to share in the comments!