Customs in Yiwu area

Food Customs

In Yiwu folk, during festive occasions such as weddings, housewarming, birthdays, promotions, and further education, relatives and friends always have the custom of treating guests, giving gifts, and returning gifts, which continues to this day. However, there is a big difference between the rich and the poor in treating guests and giving gifts. The rich have a grand occasion, a sumptuous feast, rich dishes, and even use "Sixteen Exchange Lots" to entertain distinguished guests. The poor have no choice but to have a simple family dinner. It really feels like "a banquet of wine for the rich and half a year's food for the poor" and "the smell of wine and meat in the rich family, and the bones on the road are frozen to death". We have only heard about the famous dishes and delicacies of "Sixteen Huishuan", but we have not seen them.

As Yiwu’s food culture, the “Sixteenth Sign” should be studied and passed on carefully, which should be beneficial to the development of today’s catering industry. Traditional food culture has its merits for reference and inheritance. In fact, compared with today's banquet dishes, "Sixteen Huetsuan" is really "little in comparison" and cannot be compared with the same. It is also an impact and criticism on certain inappropriate lifestyles and eating habits today.

The "Sixteenth Sign" full banquet: refers to 4 cooked foods, 4 seafood, 4 sweet soups, 4 snacks, and 8 cold cuts.

Among the traditional banquets and festive banquets of the past, the "Sixteenth Lot" is the most abundant, followed by the "Twelfth Lot". The so-called "Sixteen Lots" means that the host selects 16 precious dishes from the lotus tube and orders bamboo sticks to form a "full banquet", which is called "Sixteen Lots". The "Twelve Huihui" is similar, that is, 4 items are omitted (2 items are omitted from the "Four Seafoods" and 2 items are omitted from the "Four Sweet Soups"). "Sixteen Huetsuan" consists of the following dishes:

Select 4 types of eight cold dishes from the following two types of dishes according to the specific conditions of season, supply, and price, and place them on the table when the banquet begins

Chicken, duck, mutton, beef, jellyfish, amaranth, and eggs

Ham, sausage, tripe slices, braised meat (the above are white-cut)

Chinese cabbage, green beans, shrimp, shredded pork, wild rice, winter bamboo shoots and kidneys

Raw fried belly slices, shredded eel slices, chopped green onion, crucian carp, crabmeal, scrambled eggs

Fried bell celery, chicken, mushrooms and bamboo shoots (the above are stir-fried)

Four hot dishes, choose 4 types from the following dishes

Steamed mushroom chicken, fungus, steamed chicken, golden needle hooves, steamed turtle, steamed whole fish, vermicelli and tendons

Four seafood, choose 4 types from the following dishes

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Winter bamboo shoots, scallops, leek sprouts, fish belly, osmanthus, whitebait slices, mussels, vinegar flavored shark's fin (shark), fungus and sea cucumber

Four Sweet Soups Choose 4 types from the following sweet soups

Logic Lo rice porridge, glutinous rice, white fungus, longan, ginseng soup, soy sauce, lotus seeds, almonds, lily, osmanthus and seasonal fruits

Four snacks, choose 2 sweet and 2 salty from the following snacks

Knocked-up steamed buns with minced meat, small steamed buns with bean paste Rice dumplings, crystal red fruits, green plums, eight-treasure flowers, steamed pork with lotus flour

100-fruit rice cake, suet cake, one-hundred-fruit glutinous cake, sesame seed rice cakes

4 cooked food, 4 seafood, 4 sweet soup, 4 snacks, this All 16 dishes must be cooked and served one after another, alternately. The last dish is "Fried Bighead Carp Head and Braised Tofu". As a rule, this dish is not eaten and is called "leftover fish". Guests who need to eat eat the last bowl of soup, usually "roasted tofu with green vegetables" or "roasted winter bamboo shoots with pickled vegetables". Those who don't want to eat can stand up and say goodbye when they see the "fish head tofu" on the table.

Introduction to "Top Ten Folk Customs":

Weddings and White Events

In the old days, asking for a wife (getting married) among the people in Yiwu was a big happy event. A couple's marriage, from meeting, engagement to marriage, takes at least half a year and up to three years for the woman to prepare the dowry. There are also many procedures: matchmaking, looking after the bride, making a betrothal, giving gifts (bringing gifts), giving dates, picking up fruits (called "danpaifen" in Xixiang), saying goodbye to relatives, giving back gifts, raising money for future generations, getting up to drink wine, and saying goodbye to ancestors. , getting married, getting the bride into the sedan chair, worshiping heaven and earth, having banquets, making wedding arrangements (commonly known as "asking for fruit"), meeting parents-in-law, thanking matchmakers, etc. Many old etiquette and customs are still continuing today.

Yiwu folk custom emphasizes flesh-and-blood friendship and respects the elderly and filial piety. When a family member is sick, he should do his best to seek medical diagnosis and treatment, stay with him day and night, serve tea, and take medicine at the right time. Wash the patient's body, turn him or her frequently, and deal with excretion of waste at any time. Never get tired of hard work, never frown when suffering.

A hundred years later, filial sons and daughters, filial sons and filial wives, have been passed down from generation to generation and have become a common practice. At the end of the 20th century, cremation was fully implemented in Yiwu, and the urns were placed in the cemetery. Cemeteries in various places are mostly built in mountainous areas, and funeral ceremonies are generally carried out according to traditional customs, except that coffins are not used.

Birthdays and birthdays

The birth date of each year is regarded as a celebration for a person. The family celebrates him or her, wishes health and longevity, and eats egg noodles that symbolize longevity. The whole family has fun. Every time he reaches ten years old, the celebration is bigger than usual birthdays. If you are over 60 years old, you will celebrate your birthday every tenth year, especially if you are one hundred years old, it was called "Ren Rui" in ancient times.

Building trusses on new houses

In the old days when houses were built, people in Yiwu called them new houses. It needs to go through multiple procedures such as selecting the foundation, breaking the ground and fixing the foundation. It also needs to choose an auspicious time. The time must be in harmony with the birth sign of the homeowner and cannot conflict with each other.

Yinglong lanterns

There are currently more than 400 dragon lanterns in Yiwu, most of which are bench dragons, as well as dragon lanterns (bamboo dragons and cloth dragons), bead lanterns, and character lanterns (such as Yinglong lanterns). Hu Gong, Chen Bai and Twenty-Five Prime Minister) and so on. The traditional dragon lanterns are mainly held during the Lantern Festival and Qingming Festival. During the event, people "set up incense tables", light one or three sticks of incense, hold walking lanterns, kowtow and kneel to the Dragon King, and pray that the Dragon King will bless the world and foretell good weather in the coming year, peace and prosperity for the country and the people.

The Jia family raised the pavilion on stilts

The ninth generation of the Jia family in Yangchuan, he was a Jinshi in the late Yi Dynasty of Zhenguan in the Tang Dynasty, and an official censor. In Bingwu (646 AD), he returned to his hometown to visit his ancestors and built Jia Dashi Ancestral Hall is located in the right corner of the main hall of Shuanglin Temple. Every year on the eighteenth day of the first lunar month, a large temple fair is held in each Jia's natural village in Yangchuan, Yiwu. On this day, in addition to worshiping their ancestors in their own village ancestral hall, the Jia family villagers in Yangchuan, Yiwu, also go to Haiyun Temple to worship Buddha. The villagers of the "Zhijia" village, whose turn is New Year's Eve, carried an exquisitely carved Buddhist shrine of Master Fu. Nearly ten or dozens of "Carrying Jia Qiao", Longhu flag, Centipede flag, Qingdao flag opened the way, and dozens of "Carrying Jia Qiao" flags opened the way. Gunpowder blunderbuss and pairs of large gongs sounded rhythmically, carrying large candles weighing a hundred kilograms, beating gongs and drums, and went to Haiyun Temple to host the annual 18th Congress.

New Year

The Spring Festival is the Chinese New Year and is one of the most important traditional festivals in China. Yiwu attaches great importance to the New Year's Eve dinner, and they pay particular attention to the food and drink: the first is steamed buns, which indicates a prosperous New Year; the second is rice cakes, which means that each year is getting better and better. At the same time, fish is also a must-eat. Fish is a homophonic word for "surplus", which symbolizes auspiciousness and abundance. The New Year's Eve dinner should also be cooked a little more. Having enough to eat indicates that there will be more than enough in successive years. During the all-night vigil, people also light the lights in every room brightly, which indicates a prosperous festival.

Qingming Festival and Winter Solstice

During the Qingming Festival in the countryside of Yiwu, willow branches are placed on every door and window. Men, women, old and young get up early one after another and go for a walk in the wild, which is called "outing" and "picking up the green energy". Another custom is to collect jingjing in the wild, wash it and pound it, then knead it with glutinous rice flour to make various "Qingming dumplings". There are also customs of tomb-sweeping during the Qingming Festival, such as "visiting the tomb", "sacrifice to the grandpa", "worship the ancestors", etc.

Winter solstice offering sacrifices and sweeping tombs is similar to the Qingming Festival. The main customs include offering incense, burning paper money, clothing, adding soil and setting off fireworks and firecrackers.

Mid-Autumn Festival in August

Yiwu Mid-Autumn Festival has local customs such as making rice dumplings, frying dried noodles, killing chickens and ducks, and eating moon cakes. At night, each family places a small square table or a rice sieve in the courtyard to enjoy the moon, which is also called "worshiping the moon". Most of the offerings used are pomegranates, dates, pears, watermelons, water chestnuts, pomelo, pomelo, bananas and other seasonal fruits, as well as moon cakes, rice dumplings, mochi and other foods.

Chongyang Temple Fair

Since the Southern Song Dynasty, people in Yiwu have come to worship Duke Hu during the Double Ninth Festival. During the eighth and ninth months of the lunar calendar, groups of people come to Shangyan to worship the statue of Duke Hu. A few days before the Double Ninth Festival, the statue of Hu Gong is carried to Desheng Yanhe Lingxing Temple to worship the statue of Hu Gong. Temple fairs are held in Cao Village in Yanqian, Tongshan Rock in Yiting, Zhugong Rock in Huaxi and Hu Gong Temple in Shangyang. There are also popular performances in places with Hu Gong Temple.

Open a new market

Shops in Yiwu urban areas and rural market towns will remain open from the first to the fourth day of the first lunar month except hotels, grocery stores and other stores commonly known as "Changsheng stores". It is not until the fifth day of the first lunar month that the God of Wealth is taken over from the God of Wealth to open the business, which is commonly known as "opening a new market". On this day, the rice market, firewood market, poultry market and other markets in the town opened on the same day.

On the day of "Opening a New Market", villagers need to go to the market to do business, which is called "rushing to the new market".