Chapter 12 Gossip about the old capital

In the early agricultural era, every year as soon as the twelfth lunar month was over, it was time to be busy celebrating the New Year.There is a proverb in Beijing that says: "Laba porridge is the new year." It also said: "Laba porridge for sending letters, and Kanto sugar is terrible." It has been handed down since ancient times that the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month is the day when Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, proclaimed the Tao.Buddhist disciples use beans, fruits, and millet to cook porridge for the Buddha. After drinking the porridge, they can invite the Buddha to bless them.Chinese folks drink Laba porridge, which began in the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.In the prosperous Tang Dynasty, the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month was called the Laba Festival, and the custom of sipping porridge during Laba was very popular for a while.During the Kang (Xi) and Qian (Long) periods of the Qing Dynasty, the world had been at peace for a long time. In addition to cooking Laba porridge for Buddha, Qianlong followed suit and regarded cooking Laba porridge as a grand ceremony. After making porridge for the Buddha, it is distributed to the emperor and the concubines to eat, which is called "Shangshan"; and it is to be awarded to the nearby princes and officials.It is said that eating this kind of Laba porridge can turn bad luck into good luck within a year, and bring good luck to death.

The custom of making Laba porridge seems to be very common in all provinces along the north and south of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River.However, many officials and eunuchs in Beiping who are qualified to wear red caps dare not be sloppy because they want to offer their own Laba porridge to the inner court.Take the most exquisite Laba porridge ingredients I have ever tasted. There are eight kinds of glutinous rice, millet, sorghum rice, millet, coix seed rice, corn grits, barley kernels, and red beans.Among them, the coix seed rice should be picked to remove the middle rice bran, and the red beans should be washed to make bean paste.The porridge fruit used in the porridge, except dried lily and dried lotus seeds can be mixed into the pot and cooked together, the other six kinds of porridge fruit, hazelnuts, pine nuts, almonds, walnuts, chestnuts, dehulled, jujube, can be used separately with brown sugar Put it away and take it by yourself when drinking porridge.The water for cooking porridge should be filled at one time and cannot be added.The peeled jujube peels are boiled with water to dilute the bean paste and stir well. If the amount is appropriate, the porridge will be deep lotus root pink. When you sip it, the color and aroma will be good, which is considered the best Laba porridge.

There are many things to buy for the New Year, but they are nothing more than food, shoes, hats and clothing for the New Year.When it comes to eating and drinking during the Chinese New Year, let’s take a look at: For example, in Beiping, although the first six days of the first month of the first month of the first month of the first month of the first lunar month, the shops will be open for business, but what they sell are old products from the next year; it is always after the Lantern Festival that new products will be officially opened for business!Dafan Zhuangzi opens the latest after the Chinese New Year, and some don’t open until the end of the first month.One is because the stove has been used for a whole year and needs to be refurbished; the other is that the red and white case masters on the stove have to go back to their hometowns to celebrate the New Year only after Chinese New Year, so they can't open seats too early.As for the "Lianshi Trading" that does business as usual without rest during the New Year, it is very rare.Judging from the above situation, it is a matter of course for a family with ample money to prepare food for a month and a half and twenty days in advance.This fee is quite considerable.

As for clothing, new shoes are indispensable for a family of men, women and children celebrating the New Year.There is an old saying in the old mother of Peiping that people wear new shoes during the New Year and trample on villains so that they will not gossip behind their backs.Wearing new clothes and hats during Chinese New Year is just a child.As for the adults, the people in the north are quite simple, and the style of clothes will not change for a few years, unlike now, when they are longer and shorter, sometimes fat and sometimes thin, and are refurbished every year.Except for the rich and wealthy ladies who want to make a few new clothes to show off, ordinary women have so-called home clothes and guest clothes. They take out the guest clothes in the box and buy a few velvet flowers. Wear it on your head, and you can deal with the Chinese New Year.

During the Chinese New Year, the most important thing is to pay the gods and worship the ancestors.In the early years, most of the families believed in Buddhism, and they were blessed by the Buddha all year round. At the end of the year, they would naturally look up to Gastrodia elata and pray for the coming year.Chinese New Year is the biggest festival of the year. On weekdays, family members send food to all directions, and you go east and west. At the end of the year and New Year’s Eve, you always rush home to reunite with your family.Medium-sized families in Peiping have several sacrificial utensils. These sacrificial utensils are all made in Guangxi. The bottom is a water bowl (whichever is warmer and the dishes are not cold). It is only used once a year. As for the base containers for dried and fresh fruits, they must be washed and wiped clean.

Worshiping heaven and worshiping ancestors naturally cannot do with incense candles. People who do not usually burn incense have to burn a few more sticks of incense during the New Year. Most of them burn for eighteen days from New Year's Eve to the seventeenth.On New Year's Eve, it is said that the gods go down to the world to visit the good and evil in the world, so another all-night incense bucket is ordered on New Year's Eve.All major incense and candle shops in Peiping can be customized. The height of the bucket is more than four feet. Each section is hooped with gold and silver colored paper.The incense bucket is lit from the beginning of the New Year's Eve, and it will not be considered real until it is burnt out at noon on New Year's Day.The branches in front of the table of heaven and earth can be more than ten feet long, and Ziwuxiang, which is thicker than a thumb, is branched one by one.A stick of Tibetan incense smoked with musk navel orchid before the ancestral God's happy appearance added to the solemn and solemn atmosphere when worshiping ancestors on New Year's Eve.In addition, there are various candles in large double packs and small double packs, five packs of 100 speed ingots and ten packs, and several packs of loose incense, which can only be used for worshiping gods and ancestors.In addition to Tibetan incense, you have to go to the Baita Temple or Yongheguan to buy it from the lamas in the temple. These incense candles must be laid out with incense wax before offering sacrifices to the stove.Otherwise, if you buy it temporarily, the fragrance will not dry and the wax will not be solid, so it will be a big spoiler; even within a year, everything will not go well.

In the past, cleaning the house during the Chinese New Year was also a big event.In the past, the elderly had too many taboos, and they were not allowed to clean the house after the 20th of the twelfth lunar month. On that day, the earth king was in charge, and the soil was not allowed.Therefore, which day to sweep the house, you must first read "The Story of the Jade Box". Officials and officials all have a copy of "The Story of the Jade Box", and you can choose the appropriate auspicious day to sweep it.Some small households do not have "The Story of the Jade Box" themselves, or do not know how to read, so they have to bother the nearby oil and salt shop.No matter which oil and salt store has a copy of "The Story of the Jade Box", it seems that there is a colleague who specializes in "The Story of the Jade Box" in the store. Whenever the neighbors come to ask him to choose an auspicious day, he will not hesitate to follow the book. Recite the original text like a fluent, choose a good day when everything is going well.Now no one knows about the book "Jade Box", and it may be even more unheard of to ask the oil and salt shop on the auspicious day of sweeping the house.

Beijing cleans up for the Chinese New Year. No one else needs to come to check. I do it very thoroughly.First of all, take the calligraphy and painting room mirror hanging on the wall to the courtyard and wipe it clean.The antiques and toys on the tables, cabinets, and general utensils should be washed and wiped in the courtyard.Evacuate the whole house, on the one hand, use a long feather broom to sweep the house and dust, on the other hand, use sawdust (sawdust is called sawdust in Beijing) and water, search (pronounced as "keep") over and over again, and sweep the floor. It is spotlessly clean (there are square tile floors in Beijing, and floors are rarely used).Then put the glazed doors and windows as partitions, and polish them so that they can be seen from others.Then move the objects out of the house and put them back to their original places one by one, and you're done.The winter in the north is bitterly cold, and the dripping water turns into ice. Even if you wash it with boiling water, your fingers will still be red, swollen and painful after a while.Even though it has been several years, I still feel shuddering when I think of the house-cleaning experience in Beijing in the past.

In the Qing Dynasty, the civil servants in the yamen had neither weekly holidays nor regular holidays, and worked hard all year round.After the twelfth day of the twelfth lunar month, no matter the size of the yamen, they must be sealed and closed, so that everyone can take a breather.During the sealing period, Youzao used blank official documents to affix the small wooden stamp of "reserved official documents".The seal dates of big and small yamen are uniform, and the opening date is all set to be the 20th day of the first month.Although the office is busy after the fifth day and the sixth day of the first month, although it does not open the seal, it is natural to deal with urgent business matters first.Some idle Leng Yamen, although it is said that the official opening of Zhiyue on the 20th, but they are lazy and don't finish the first month, it seems that the office can't return to normal!When the seal is opened, incense candles are offered, kowtow is like a ritual, and firecrackers are set off to show respect for the national system.

The big seals of each yamen are all official seals, which are placed in a wooden printing box. When sealing, a piece of apricot or khaki cloth should be used to wrap the printing box and tie the seal.Those who used to be printing supervisors must be able to print knots.The so-called seal knot, when tying it, there is a special technique, it looks like the seal knot is fastened firmly, but when opening the seal, shake one hand, and the seal knot will be opened, neither beating the knot to death, let alone using it Solve it with both hands.In the past, there was a superstition in official circles that seal knots were fastened, which not only made it easier for the yamen to have discord, but also hindered foreign writing.The seal is newly opened. If the seal supervisor is shaking beautifully, he will open it as soon as he pulls it. Taking the yamen with a relatively large household department, it is very common for the hall official to send a tea ceremony of ten taels or twenty taels!

When the author was serving in public office, there was a time when I was handed over. The person who supervised the printing for me was a female printing supervisor.I once asked her why she had such an old-fashioned method.She said that her father supervised the printing in the Chief Secretary's Yamen in Zhejiang, and she learned it naturally.It's a pity that I was busy at the time and couldn't ask her for advice carefully. This kind of ingenious technique may no longer be used by anyone. Chinese people, regardless of the northern and southern provinces, do not like to set off firecrackers. When the New Year comes, it is a good day for universal celebration, and it is even more important to let off firecrackers for a while.Worshiping ancestors on New Year's Eve, children are facing the stove for vaccination, and traveling on New Year's Day, these three long whips are indispensable, and the longer they are, the more prosperous people and wealth will be.During the period of the Jicha Political Affairs Committee, Xiao Zhenying was a very popular figure. It is said that when he traveled on New Year's Day in the 23rd year of the Republic of China, he put a 300,000-head special long whip in the residence of Beibing Masi for half an hour, cutting off the traffic in the alley. up.Generally, the longest whip is 100,000 heads, and the 300,000-head whip is naturally a special product.During the Chinese New Year in Beiping, apart from the large temporary stalls selling fireworks in front of the Dongsi Xidan Drum Tower, it is the major tea shops that wholesale firecrackers.Tea has nothing to do with firecrackers, so why do tea shops sell firecrackers?The author once asked several old seniors, but no one could tell why, and now I am afraid that no one knows. The fireworks in Peiping are not only made by local fireworks workshops, but the nearby sources are Shulu in Hebei Province, and the distant sources are Liuyang in Hunan, Qiongzhou, Leizhou, and Sanshui in Guangdong.Fireworks with sound include double sound, heaven and earth cannon, Erjijiao, Pao Da Deng, star anise, continuous promotion to three levels, a thunder on the ground, cannoning Xiangyang City, etc.; racks, big money and small money, and so on.The ones that children hold in their hands include ground mice, Didijin, Huangyan, foreign flowers and so on.The most ingenious is the flower box, the more layers, the bigger the box and the most expensive.At the Lantern Festival in Chengnan Amusement Park that year, a fireworks box must be set off to entertain the guests.The largest box has a diameter of seven or eight feet and a height of more than two feet.All the fire colors are folded and placed in a box layer by layer. When they are put together, there are thousands of stars and clouds.Compared with the high-altitude fireworks produced by the current joint logistics, it can be said that each has its own advantages and disadvantages. The honey offering is also an essential decoration for the Chinese New Year in Peking. The table of heaven and earth, in front of the Buddha, and in front of the Kitchen God are all indispensable. Except for the Kitchen King offering, which is only three and relatively short, the rest are nearly two feet long and count as five. A big honey puja.Money is spent everywhere during the Chinese New Year, and the three honey pujas are of course costly.Generally, families with a plan can first go to the bun shop for a honey offering meeting, and keep a few copies before New Year's Eve and pick them up at home with a round cage.Who knows how to pay by installments, Beiping Pastry Shop has long been established! Adults are busy during the New Year, children study in the study until around the 20th of the twelfth lunar month, and the teachers go home to celebrate the New Year, so the private study in the study will also take the annual leave.At that time, there was neither cold training nor winter camps. Parents were afraid that their children would eat and run around, so they came up with the best job for their children, which was to write Spring Festival couplets.Put a table in the street and alley, place the paper, ink, brush and inkstone, and then you can write close-ups.Young people are competitive, your writing is bright and smooth, I can use real cursive, script and seal script in four styles; the words and sentences you use in couplets are elegant and grand, and I will send you a horizontal comment for each couplet.At the end of the year, everyone has a few words of respect in their arms, and it just so happens that the painting shed opens, and it happens that three friends and four friends go to the shed to pass the day. When it comes to the New Year pictures sold in the painting shed, there is no child who does not like them.Use large sheets of powder and paper rubbing and coloring, no matter the big house or the small household, you have to buy a few sheets to embellish the year, but the places to paste are different, some are pasted in the living room and bedroom, and some are pasted in the concierge kitchen.It is impossible to test when the New Year pictures began.At that time, Dr. Fu Kaisen, an international archaeologist, collected more than ten New Year paintings of the Ming Dynasty.Among the New Year pictures collected by Mr. Qi Rushan, a master of Chinese opera, there are products from the reign of Kangxi and Qianlong.At the same time, in view of the fact that this kind of ancient folk painting art with a strong local flavor is about to be lost, Qi Rulao and a few colleagues pooled a sum of money to print forty or fifty copies of the bottom plates saved by Yang Liuqing and Dai Lianzeng that could be printed, and divided them into several pieces. The share, everyone kept it and did not pass it on as a material, but it will last forever. It is said that there are only two places in my country that produce New Year pictures, one is Yangliuqing near Tianjin, and the other is Wuqiang County in Shenzhou, Hebei.Yang Liuqing's paintings, also known as Wei paintings, are exquisitely crafted, brightly colored, and sold at a slightly higher price, and are only sold in Beijing, Tianjin and Baoding.Although Wuqiang's New Year pictures are somewhat rough in hand, they have a strong local flavor. They are sold as far away as the major cities and towns of Kunming in the southwest and the area around Dihua in the northwest.Qi Rulao said that he saw hundreds of Chinese New Year paintings in the Paris Museum.Before the July 7th Incident, the museums of the South Manchuria Railway had a very rich collection of this kind of New Year pictures. Mr. Wang Shenbo was the one who collected New Year pictures with Qi Rulao.According to Ru Lao’s living report, Mr. Wang came to Taiwan earlier, and those New Year paintings may still be preserved. I hope that these folklore-related and long-history works of art can be exhibited during the New Year.Wouldn't it be meaningful for the younger generation to see what folk paintings in the early years looked like? When it comes to New Year's greetings, except for children who like to get red envelopes during the New Year, adults mention New Year's greetings, and no one does not have a headache.It is relatively easy for Beiping merchants to pay New Year greetings, and send apprentices to deliver business cards everywhere.At the entrance of each store, there is a letter box with "honestly honored card", once the film is thrown in, even if the number of people arrives, dozens or even hundreds of stores can be visited in a day.Ordinary officials and civilians are different, that is, the communication is sparse, distant relatives who don't see each other once or twice a year, and every family has to pay New Year's greetings during the New Year, otherwise it will become a cut off contact? All people who come to pay New Year's greetings must return their greetings, and students should pay New Year's greetings to their teachers, and the teachers should also return their greetings, otherwise it will be considered impolite.Fortunately, according to the rules of Peking, unless close relatives and friends can come to the door without handing over their business cards, they will go outside the hall without handing over their business cards.In the early years of the Republic of China, mule carts were still used for New Year greetings.Sitting in the car without even opening the curtains, he handed his business card to the driver. He shouted that something was wrong, and someone from the porter came out to greet him.The coachman held up his business card and said "Happy New Year's Eve", and the concierge also held up his business card after receiving it, and said "I don't dare to take it if I work hard to get in the way", which is considered a gift. The city of Beiping is vast, and the mules and carts move slowly. From the first day to the fifth day of the new year, hundreds of families have to worship. If it weren't for Wangmen posting posts, wouldn't this year be the Lantern Festival?Because this kind of posting New Year's greetings is completely a formality.Those who made friends with Su Guang came up with a clever way to open a list and hand it over to their children and close relatives to vote for New Year's greetings.Some people don't have their own cars, and there are places for mule carts in every street, called "chekou", and they can hire them there.After negotiating the price, there are two other things that must be settled first.One is how much money will be added for wearing an official hat (red tasseled hat) while driving, and how much more will be added for handing over the film.Because drivers don't wear official hats, they are in business with each other. Once they wear official hats, they are divided into masters and servants, so more money is added; delivering business cards can save the driver from getting on and off the bus, and saves money. If you talk nonsense with the concierge, you will naturally have to pay more.These are old things in the old capital, isn't it ridiculous to say it now? In old-fashioned people, resigning from the new year is more important than paying New Year's greetings.On New Year's Eve, please show a happy face and hang it up to make offerings, which is regarded as a farewell to the ancestors, and then the elders and elders kowtow to the elders in order to say goodbye.All unmarried boys and girls have lucky money to get.Giving red envelopes is the business of the hall guests. Official guests only give red envelopes to aunts and uncles. Because they are close relatives and they walk into the house, they give red envelopes to New Year's gift.Unlike the later struggle for extravagance, red envelopes are flying all over the sky, regardless of age, men and women, making it difficult for ordinary people who are stuck in the old etiquette to get used to it. In the court of the Qing Dynasty, the resignation of the year was also very important.Every New Year's Eve, when the sun is westward, all princes, princes, relatives, and favorites of the nearby branches have to enter the palace to bid farewell to the new year.All the palaces also prepared small purses for appreciating people. The designs and colors include embroidery, daughters of gold, tapestry, beads, and Luo Wan embroidery.There are small gold and silver ingots, money ingots, and wishful wishes in the purse, all of which are no more than soybeans in size, but the carvings are engraved and skillful, and those who get them are all as rare (During Yuan Shikai's Hongxian period, Guo Baochen, his chief executive, supervised the creation A batch of Hongxian porcelain, and imitating the original pattern of the Qing court, ordered a batch of gold caskets, which were later searched for by collectors at a high price. Because of the large number of Hongxian porcelains, they were occasionally found on the market. As for the batch of small cassava Son, before he had time to reward others, he was divided up by his left and right).Ouchi resigned from the old age, and all of them would leave the palace before sunset at the latest.Because the royal family knows that every family has to worship their ancestors on New Year's Eve, and only after the ancestor worship can the family have a reunion dinner, and they can no longer have a reunion dinner after paying Zizheng.Except for special circumstances, the palace will never leave the ministers to watch the new year together in the palace. Beijing was the capital of the three dynasties of Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the folk customs of Chinese New Year are endless.The above are some of the older years, let’s talk about the atmosphere of the New Year in the old capital for everyone!