People born in the 70s and 1980s always have "worm companions" in their childhood memories, finding bugs in the weeds and putting them in bottles, and then happily taking them home to show off to their friends. Every summer evening, lying in bed listening to the insects in the bottle, it feels very comfortable. Waking up in sleep, not yet opening our eyes, listening to the symphony of bugs outside the window, we will all "reflexively" react to this is the "sound" of summer, even if we use electronic devices to play imitation calls, we will be deceived subconsciously. The influence of songbirds on humans is too great, this is not only a spiritual entertainment activity, but also a culture, and our relationship with them is unclear and constant.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > chirping insects, which have a long history</h1>
From the barbaric era of Ru Mao drinking blood when human beings have just learned to walk upright to the wisdom of drilling wood for fire, every development of mankind is the result of observation and thinking. Human understanding of songbird culture is still indispensable to observation, first hearing the sound of songbirds, then catching them, and then observing this wonderful six-legged elf. This observation is constantly contained in ancient books and is very rich in content. Verses in the Book of Poetry: "May the shrimp move the stock, and in June the shaji vibrate the feathers." It is the early record of songbirds in ancient books. Antes, sand chickens, crickets are representatives of songbirds, and "moving stocks" and "vibrating feathers" are also their way of sounding, it seems that the ancients have long paid attention to their characteristics. The poet in "Zhaonan Grass Worm" also vividly describes the calls of songbirds, using "yāo grass worms, tossed insects" to describe these chirping insects. In the ancient poetry culture, we seem to hear their cries, and the olithic words such as "喓" and "趯" are no longer boring words, but suddenly become a bridge, connecting the hearts of the ancients and us, so that the distance between us and the ancients has never been so close.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > six-legged elves with different forms</h1>
There are few natural science texts in ancient Chinese books, and there is no huge work that describes various animals and classifications in detail, but we can still find "clues" about the classification of songbirds in ancient China. In the pre-Qin era, there were more poems with the direct title of ant, and the poems even had such famous sentences as "螽思羽, 诜诜兮", which described the life habits of ant. There are many kinds of song insects, but in terms of ancient Chinese descriptions, the song insects known by the ancients are mostly divided into two varieties: crickets and crickets. Both species of insects belong to the order Orthoptera, but crickets and crickets are more distantly related and have very different habits, and our common grasshoppers belong to a branch of the ant insect. The cricket is larger and louder than the cricket, and the ancients loved to listen to it. Crickets were gradually divided from songbirds to playing insects, and began to enter the cultural field of "fighting insects".
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > to the object of speech, borrowing insect lyricism</h1>
In the verse of "Yi Tong", it is written: "Li Qiu, dragonflies singing; Under the white dew, dragonflies go to church", and people associate the song of songworms with time and solar terms. The sounds of song insects are mostly autumn days, and since ancient times to autumn, people have entered a season full of "sadness and loneliness". In the beginning, people did not find any connection between the cries of these various little insects and their inner feelings, so they were only objectively recorded, and there was no aesthetic factor. But later people found that the changes in nature, like the vicissitudes of the mulberry field, listening to the sound of songbirds, human feelings also began to change, with the change of circumstances, some people laughed, some people lost their voices and cried, and some people were worried and felt extremely lonely. The sound of insects is no longer a single sound, but also a spiritual sustenance, but also a portrayal of their own mood.
"Leaning on the side of the room, the crickets sing in the West Hall." Reading such poignant poems, we seem to hear the cries of crickets in late autumn and feel the loneliness of the poet. This situation is more direct than any text. Many literati and inkers like to write these insects into poetry, so that their feelings are released together with the sound of insects, so that today's readers can feel the feelings in their hearts, listen to the familiar crickets, think of the ancients to hear the cries are also like this, it seems to have a kind of "ancient people today if the water flows, see the bright moon is like this" intention.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > deep palace mourning, insect breeding pastime</h1>
Since people have found a certain emotional sustenance from the song of insects and found something beautiful, it is natural that the phenomenon of special animal breeding insects to listen to the song has emerged. The record in the "Kaiyuan Tianbao Testament" about the palace maid raising songbirds in small cages, although it is difficult to say that this is the beginning of the fighting crickets, it can show that this is the beginning of the real songbird playing.
Why do these women in the deep palace choose to keep songbirds, and they should have many better ways to entertain? Maybe it's a kind of dissipation outside of their good life? I'm afraid this is not the case, but if you think about it, you will feel that this is a sustenance to fill their empty mood. In the feudal era, how many women in the harem came voluntarily? This luxurious palace is like a dungeon, forbidding all maidens to copper, although they have satin jade treasures around them, which meets the needs of their material life, but who takes care of their spirits, who will heal the wounds of their hearts and the loneliness and sorrow of separation from society? I'm afraid no one can do it.
There is only one feudal emperor, but it is often "three thousand beautiful women", many of these palace women have never seen the emperor in their lives, they have become living widows, and there are countless grievances in their hearts but there is nowhere to vent. Tang Xuanzong was an emperor of the wind and naturally did not take care of all his wives and concubines. So I thought of many ways. Shi Zai: "The emperor mentioned the pink butterfly and let it go, and the butterfly stopped with the luck." With this method of butterfly concubine selection, how many people will become the darlings of the emperor's side?
Most of the palace ladies passed their youth and spent this boring time. The song worm became a tool to resolve the resentment of the deep palace, and became the object of people's spiritual entertainment at that time. The famous poet Yuan Shu of the Tang Dynasty has a poem "Bai Tou Yin", the theme of which is the loneliness and deep resentment of these palace women, and this feeling is written to the fullest. Raising these songbirds became the main entertainment activity of the palace women at that time. With a small and exquisitely crafted cage, put the grasshopper in the cage, and then put it next to you, listen to the insects, and then think of their own lives, these palace women must be full of emotions.
In the long night, these songworms became the "only listeners" of the tragic lives of the palace women, listening to the endless stories told by the victims of feudal politics. With the increasing number of palace women raising insects, over time "insect raising" has become an industry in Chang'an, and Song Taogu's "Qing Yilu" records a place called "Immortal Worm Society", which was set up in Chang'an City, which is the earliest "insect club" in ancient China.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the end of the worm and the death of culture</h1>
As tall buildings rise from the ground, there are fewer and fewer deep grasses. On the benches of the upscale residential area with European-style gardens, looking at the artificial lake in front of you, this is the "comfortable" new life of modern people. After we calm down and think about it, we will feel that something is missing from such a midsummer night, what is it? Yes, it's bugs! The cry gradually drifted away from us, and we could no longer hear the familiar cry.
The acceleration of urbanization has made the natural habitat of songbirds less and less, and in a large province like Shanxi, Shandong, authentic grasshoppers can be seen everywhere in the past, but now we look for them but it is difficult to see them again. These songbirds are not protected animals, and no one pays attention to their habitat. There are also fewer and fewer vendors selling grasshoppers, and occasionally a few sell all of them are "long-winged grasshoppers", and they are also small and pitiful, not authentic grasshoppers. Even for these "non-authentic" breeds, the catchers struggle to find them far from the city.
Today's children no longer need "worm companions", electronic products and the emerging Internet entertainment occupy their lives. The sound of insects no longer attracts the attention of children, but the illuminated screens of electronic products become the focus of their consciousness. What a wonderful thing it would be for these children to hold mobile phones and computers to be able to enter the world of worms because of a coincidence. Somehow, insect cultures are getting farther and farther away from us, and we have forgotten them, or we don't seem to need them anymore. In the evenings of summer, in some overgrown parks that are not well managed, we can still faintly hear the lonely calls of a few crickets. The songbirds never seemed to be far away from us, and seemed to have left us.
This is not the death of the insects, this is the death of Chinese culture.