"Children look forward to the New Year, and adults look forward to ploughing the fields." Spring Festival, a traditional and ancient festival, once aroused the yearning of many people for the New Year.
New Year's Day, wearing new clothes, setting off firecrackers, eating reunion dinner, these customs, experienced for thousands of years.
In the era of material poverty, children look forward to the New Year, just to be able to eat a few meals of meat and enjoy the novelty brought by the New Year happily. Unlike in today's day and age, eating meat is no longer a luxury.
For most people born in the late 1980s, many New Year customs are unheard of, such as traditional New Year customs such as playing New Year's rice and frying popcorn.
The most memorable thing in my mind is still to play in the waxing moon.
The Tujia family fights rice dumplings
Near the Spring Festival, every household is busy, grinding soybeans, pushing tofu, out of the fans, of course, the most exciting, is to play rice dumplings.
In many places in the south, there are customs of the Tujia family in the moon, and many people have granite stones for beating rice dumplings, eight immortal tables for pressing rice dumplings, and boards for putting rice dumplings.
"Twenty-seven, fried rice; twenty-eight, beating rice dumplings" means that every household in the twenty-seventh Tujia family of the Waxing Moon must fry fried rice (products processed from glutinous rice in many places in the south), and on the twenty-eighth day of the Waxing Moon, they must organize their neighbors and relatives to beat rice dumplings.
On the 28th of this year, I had the privilege of participating in a relative's rice dumpling activity.
The rice dumplings are pulled into a ball
The home of a relative is almost 3 km from where I live. After lunch at noon, my relatives called and said that the family organized a fight and told us to come over, and when I heard that I was going to fight sticks, I was very excited, and without saying a word, I rushed to his house.
After soaking in cold water overnight, the glutinous rice has expanded, and it needs to be steamed on the stove for about half an hour with a wooden koshiki, until the glutinous rice is cooked thoroughly, and then the steamed glutinous rice (of course, other such as millet, sorghum, corn can be steamed) is scooped up with a dustpan, and placed on the rock, which can be placed 5 to 10 pounds at a time.
Playing sticks
Everything is ready, and then the main play is the official play.
Two young and strong men, holding a hammer made of sandalwood, first used a mallet to push the glutinous rice evenly and gathered, and then raised the hammer to swing the hammer relatively, you hammer down, I hammered up, about 10 minutes, just out of the pot of glutinous rice into a gentle glutinous rice ball. At this time, a sister-in-law with sharp hands and feet will be arranged to lift the glutinous rice on the rock and quickly move it to the eight immortals table. Neighbors and relatives gathered around the table and pulled the glutinous rice balls into small stones one by one, generally weighing about 2 or so for a small stone.
The small glutinous rice dumplings were neatly stacked on the eight immortals table, and then the other eight immortals table was turned upside down and pressed on the table where the glutinous rice was placed, and a person stood on the table, pressed for 2 minutes, moved the table, and the glutinous rice dumplings were formed, but they had to be cooled on the board for one night.
The next day, the round, white rice dumplings were officially completed.
The rice dumplings are kneaded into a ball scene
Nowadays, many places have used machinery to make rice dumplings, and after eating them, there seems to be no feeling of melting away from the rice dumplings, and there is no trace of the taste of traditional rice dumplings.
The finished product is not very beautiful but very primitive
This feeling can only be experienced occasionally during the waxing moon every year.
Playing rice dumplings is a different kind of nostalgia, or a strong nostalgia, but also a love for home.