This day is the fifth day of the fifth lunar month and is the traditional folk festival "Dragon Boat Festival" in my country.
The original name of "Dragon Boat Festival" is "Dragon Boat Festival", which began in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. It is said that because Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty was born on the fifth day of August, in order to avoid the taboo of the word "five", "Dragon Boat Festival" was changed to "Dragon Boat Festival".
This festival can be said to be the festival with the most names in our country. According to statistics, there are more than 20 aliases recorded in history.
Such as "Duanyang Festival", "Chongwu Festival", "Chongwu Festival", "Tianzhong Festival", "Tianchang Festival". In the Ming Dynasty, it was also called "May Festival" and "Daughter's Day", and there were other events in history.
"Bath Orchid Festival", "Di La Festival", "Noon Festival", "Health Festival", "Poet Festival" and other names.
People in the old capital continued the custom of the Ming Dynasty and commonly called it "May Day".
As for the origin of this festival, people nowadays generally say that it is to commemorate the great poet Qu Yuan.
But this statement is not accurate.
Because just from the many holiday aliases listed above, it is not difficult to see that the activities of the "Dragon Boat Festival" are quite complex.
In fact, there are great differences between the north and the south, and each place has different forms of sacrifice and celebration. Similar to "Dragon Boat Race", "Calling the Soul of Qu Zi", etc., they are only local activities.
And speaking from historical allusions, the "Dragon Boat Festival" is not only commemorated by Qu Yuan, but also commemorated by Wu Zixu, Gou Jian, Cao E, etc.
Going back to its origins, it should be said that the original meaning of this festival is that before the intense heat comes, people hold a series of sacrifices and prayer activities to drive away plague, poison, evil spirits and disasters. It is a comprehensive folk festival that spreads across the country.
This is also the commonality of my country's traditional festivals for thousands of years. Each traditional festival embodies people's yearning and hope for peace and happiness. It can be spontaneously formed and passed down from generation to generation.
Taking the way of celebrating festivals in the old capital as an example, the "Dragon Boat Festival" is by no means worthy of the name of the three traditional festivals alongside the "Spring Festival" and "Mid-Autumn Festival". Because just from the time point of view, it starts from the first day of May to the end of May.
The commotion lasts until the fifth day of May.
Basically every family, starting from the beginning of May, will post "Zhong Kui's Picture of Driving Ghosts" and "Zhang Tianshi's Picture of Driving Five Poisons" around the house.
Some people also used red paper to cut gourd flowers, paper tigers or scorpions, snakes, centipedes, toads, geckos and other simple five poison patterns, lined with white paper, and pasted them on the lintel together with the Tianshi Talisman and Zhong Kui picture.
Exorcise evil spirits.
Changpu and mugwort leaves should be hung on the courtyard door. Pu leaves are shaped like swords and are called Pu swords. They are sharp weapons to ward off evil spirits. mugwort leaves are fragrant and fragrant. Cut and braid them into mugwort tigers to remove impurities.
At the same time, offerings are also made to the Buddha. Starting from the morning of the first day of May, incense and candles are burned, and three worship halls are set up. Three to five bowls of rice dumplings, three to five bowls of Wudu cakes, and one plate each of cherries, black mulberries, and white mulberries are burned. Incense is burned every day.
Kneel down and worship uninterrupted. The worship can only be withdrawn at noon on the Dragon Boat Festival.
In terms of accessories, the women in the family wear red velvet "lucky flowers" on their heads, and the eldest girls who have not left the palace wear "pomegranate flowers" on their heads. Small tigers, gourds, cherries, mulberries, melons, beans, green onions, etc. are also made of colorful silk.
Thread the garlic with colored thread and tie it on the child's hairpin, back or chest.
The little girls also folded cardboard strips into diamond-shaped "browns", wrapped them with colorful silk threads, and wore them on their bodies.
The above are collectively called "gourds", "life-extending threads", and "long-life threads". At the latest, on the sixth day of May when the east turns white, they must be picked off, along with the paper-cut gourds attached to the lintel, and thrown away.
Going outside the door is called "throwing disaster".
Only when disasters have been eliminated, can disasters be resolved after the May Festival, poisons can be eliminated, evil spirits can be purged, and next year's Dragon Boat Festival will be safe.
On the fifth day of May, there are some other specialties.
In addition to drinking realgar wine and eating five-poison cakes, mung bean cakes, rice dumplings, mulberries, etc., people also use realgar wine to write the word "王" on boys' foreheads and wear "tiger charms" on boys. Married girls must return to their parents' homes on the same day to celebrate the festival.
, which is called "hiding from the Dragon Boat Festival".
Finally, there is entertainment. On that day, all the theaters in the city will perform festival plays, such as "Hunyuan Box", "The Legend of Five Poisons" and "Water Flooding the Golden Mountain". There is also a "Xiyou Escape from Disasters"
explain.
On the morning of the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, ordinary people in old Beijing will go into the "Temple of Heaven" in groups, which is called "avoiding poison".
The Temple of Heaven is a holy place for praying for good luck, and it is also a scenic spot. It relies on the power of the gods to avoid poisonous diseases and can also have fun. It really kills two birds with one stone.
After the afternoon, people often continue to the "Goldfish Pond", or to the "Gaoliang Bridge", "Manjing", "Grass Bridge", and "Jishuitan" for "drinking and enjoying the tour". Everyone sits on the ground under the trees.
Much like a Western picnic, people often don’t return home until the evening.
It's just that this way of celebrating festivals that has been inherited for thousands of years finally came to an abrupt end after the founding of the People's Republic of China.
As the new society got rid of feudal superstition through changing customs and "breaking the four olds" movement, and with the rise of modern festivals such as New Year's Day, Women's Day, Labor Day, Youth Day, Children's Day, and National Day.
Soon, not only the "Dragon Boat Festival" disappeared, but also the "Qingming Festival", "Double Ninth Festival", "Qiao Qiao Festival", "Little New Year", "Shan Yuan Festival", "Hungry Ghost Festival", "Xia Yuan Festival"
"Yuan Festival" and so on. Only "Spring Festival" and "Mid-Autumn Festival" have been retained.
This phenomenon actually does not mean that modern festivals are superior to traditional festivals and can completely replace our nation's traditional festivals. Rather, it should be said that when going through a special stage of society, people are forced to make a helpless decision based on reality.
choose.
After all, festivals require money to support them. But for the living standards of most people in our country, traditional festivals are expensive and involve many things, and are far less trouble-free and cost-effective than commemorative modern festivals.
Besides, the country has a clear policy preference. Not only does it not give holidays to traditional holidays, it even cancels the original holiday of "Spring Festival". However, there are holidays on New Year's Day, Labor Day, and National Day.
Such a comparison shows that transmission festivals and modern festivals are evenly matched in terms of time management. The overall victory of modern festivals is inevitable.
But the opposite is also true. Once people's living conditions improve, the economic level improves, and working hours are shortened, the monotonous commemoration and celebration methods of these modern festivals will not be able to satisfy people's desire for celebration and their desire for life.
There is a need for richness.
The profound cultural connotations and colorful celebration methods of traditional festivals will be remembered again and return to people's lives.
This is the case for the Hong family this year. The Hong family has had many happy events this year. After the whole family was rehabilitated, both Hong Lucheng and Wang Yunlin received retirement benefits, their old house and their savings were returned. They really have time and money.
The most important thing is that the son Hong Yanwu is getting more and more reassured by his parents. Not only is he doing everything beautifully, but his reputation among the neighbors is also getting better and better. Now he has a beautiful partner, and his marriage is scheduled for next year.
This made Wang Yunlin unable to control the joy in her heart, so she naturally wanted to find an opportunity to bring the whole family together to have a good time.
In fact, in the middle of May according to the Gregorian calendar, she happened to see farmers from the suburbs of Beijing secretly selling reed leaves and horsegrass, and she was tempted. She quickly bought a lot of money, and then went to the market to find good Jiangmi and Miyun.
Jujube.
So after several transactions that were either legal or somewhat illegal, she gathered the ingredients for making the rice dumplings and opened them at home.
In terms of taste, the filling of rice dumplings has both meat and vegetable ingredients, ranging from sweet to salty. The rice dumplings in the north are mainly sweet, while the rice dumplings in the south are less sweet and more salty. The content of the ingredients is the part that best highlights the local characteristics.
In the past, "Daoxiang Village" and "Wufangzhai" in Beijing would sell rice dumplings with fillings such as eight-treasure rice dumplings, chicken rice dumplings, ham rice dumplings, fresh meat rice dumplings, etc. during the solar term, but these were basically prepared for southerners.
People in Beijing only eat three kinds of traditional rice dumplings.
One is pure rice dumplings, which are white rice dumplings made purely from glutinous rice. They are steamed and eaten with sugar. The other is jujube rice dumplings, which are mainly filled with jujubes and preserved fruits. The third type is bean paste rice dumplings.
In addition, a kind of rice dumplings using yellow rice instead of glutinous rice is also popular among the people in the capital.
The filling is made of red dates. After steaming, you can see the yellow sticky rice with bright red dates embedded in it. Some people euphemistically call it "gold-wrapped agate".
But in fact, it has a nice name. The reason why yellow rice and jujube rice dumplings are popular is that they are cheaper than glutinous rice rice dumplings. According to the concept of old Beijing people, this kind of rice dumplings are eaten by "Xiali people".
Therefore, Wang Yunlin only made glutinous rice dumplings, pure rice dumplings, jujube dumplings, and bean stuffing dumplings, which totaled about one hundred and twenty.
Before the festival, three neighbors each donated 20 of these rice dumplings, and Hong Yanwen took ten away to college student Hong Yanwen. He also asked Hong Yanwu to send ten to "Tang Xin'er". The rest were kept at home for his own use.
Most of them are pure rice dumplings.
Hong Yanwu also jokingly called his mother "high style" for this, but he only understood the truth once he tasted it.
The pure rice dumplings left behind by Wang Yunlin are no ordinary rice dumplings. They are soaked in cheese overnight and then cooked. They are dipped in osmanthus juice and rose juice and are delicious.
According to Wang Yunlin, this was a recipe of the Qing Dynasty, called "** rice dumplings". On the market in Beijing, only the "Beihai imitation rice dumplings" made during the Republic of China were sold a few times.
After wrapping the rice dumplings, it’s time to wait for the Dragon Boat Festival, when the whole family goes home for dinner.
Wang Yunlin regretted that it was not a weekend, otherwise according to her opinion, it would be best for the whole family to go on a trip together. But she did not expect that as soon as her idea came to light, she asked Hong Yanwu, who came back to get the rice dumplings, to deal with it.
What was Hong Yanwu's idea? He wanted the whole family to go to his old house to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival.
By now, the "flower hall and courtyard" of the old house have been almost tidied up. Now Mr. Shan and his people are busy repairing the two courtyards where Hong Yanwu's grandfather and uncle once lived.
The "Huatingyuan" is also connected to the Hong family's garden, so isn't it very cheap?
Upon hearing this, Wang Yunlin went to the old house to take a look. Her son was right, and it was even fully habitable.
This way, this matter will be settled when we come back. Wang Yunlin informed the whole family that they will go to the old house to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival.
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