Ningbo local folk customs

Pray for auspicious words for the Spring Festival

The 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month is called "Little New Year" by Ningbo people. It is said that this day is the birthday of Zao Lord Bodhisattva, and every household will use "Sacrifice Fruits" to commemorate the Stove Lord's birthday that night. Ningbo people also call this "Sacrifice to the Stove Night". In fact, "Ji Zao Guo" is unique to Ningbo. It is made from a mixture of frozen rice candy, foot bone candy, red balls, white balls, sesame balls, oil fruits, etc. When the candles on the offering table are about to burn out, the adults will invite the Kitchen Lord Bodhisattva from the shrine on the kitchen stove, light them with a "stove horse" with candle flames, and send them to heaven. Then, immediately distribute the "Zao Sacrifice Fruit" to the children. Sacrifice to the Stove, according to common people, is to ask the Stove Lord Bodhisattva to "speak more good words" to the Jade Emperor after going to the Heavenly Palace, in order to "wishes good fortune from the lower realms in the coming year."

Years ago, another major event was the "Year of Xie". "Xie Nian" means Ningbo people's year-end gratitude to nature, consolation to their ancestors, and their wish for good luck in the coming year. "Xie Nian" is also called "Xie Nian Soup Rice". Most people use five sacrificial plates. The sacrificial plate is a red round wooden plate, slightly smaller and lighter than the washbasin. Among the sacrifices on the sacrificial plate, the middle plate is a pig's head, which is called "profit", which means auspiciousness. If pig head is not available, use a cut of rib meat instead. On the other plate is a large rooster, or two smaller roosters, but the hens are not used. The above two plates are cooked food, and the other three plates are raw food: one plate is two silver carp, which symbolizes the fish (surplus) every year; one plate is clams, which symbolizes the good and the good; the last plate is rice cake, which symbolizes the years of life. When the year is high, the rice cakes are stacked in three or four rows and criss-crossed. Incense burners and candlesticks are placed in front of the table, as well as "yuanbao" made of rice cake powder. Place wine glasses and chopsticks around the table. The entire tabletop is filled to the brim.

The first day of the first lunar month is the Spring Festival.

On this day, people get up early and wear new clothes, new hats, and new shoes to say farewell to the old and welcome the new. It is said that wearing new shoes that have not been worn on the ground will make your feet light and your hands healthy in the new year. The male host gets up, chants auspicious words and opens the door first, then sets off firecrackers at the door, which is called "opening the door." Generally, three cannons are fired when opening the door. It is necessary to "bring four and release three", leaving one as "prepare cannon". The Ningbo dialect "prepare cannon" comes from this. The higher the firecrackers are set off, the louder they are, signaling good luck in the New Year. If it is "time, time, time", it means that it is unlucky and a replacement one should be fired immediately.

On this day, we eat glutinous rice balls (tangyuan) in the morning, which means reunion. The biggest characteristic of this day's custom is to let the household utensils "rest" for a day. In fact, it allows housewives to rest. They do not sweep the floor, do not beg for fire (do not light fires or cigarettes from others), do not kill animals, do not use knives or scissors, and do not fall down. Do not use the toilet, do not wash clothes, do not beat or scold children, and do not say unlucky words. Before going to bed, play the "closer cannon". Not going out at night is commonly known as "Peaceful Night".

New Year greetings usually start at home, followed by relatives. Generally, the closest relatives are worshiped first and then the distant relatives. According to the distance of the kinship, the close relatives are worshiped first and then the distant relatives. Speaking of New Year greetings, Ningbo people have a familiar saying, which is very interesting: "Bless your mouth for New Year's greetings, and burn your chin with lard dumplings."

Fire Trees and Silver Flowers Talk about the Lantern Festival

The fifteenth day of the first lunar month is the Lantern Festival. Because it is the earliest full moon in the year, it is called the Shangyuan Festival.

The 13th is the "Light-Up Night" and the 18th is the "Light-Down Night", during which period is the "Light Festival".

On the night of lighting up the lanterns, Ningbo people like to eat reed fruit soup. On the 14th night, there is a custom of "lighting up snakes and insects". On this day, farmers light fires and burn weeds in fields and fields to drive away evil spirits. This is commonly known as "driving away evil spirits". When the hay in fields is burning, it looks like fire dragons, so it is also called "driving away evil spirits". Tan Huolong". This is a custom that combines annual customs with agricultural production and pest control.

On Lantern Festival night, there are lanterns, firecrackers, and glutinous rice balls. Zhenhai Xing eats "Girl's Soup", which is similar to the current Baiguo Soup. It is said that one year on the night of the Lantern Festival, there was a large family in Zhenhai Hou Street. The master, wife, young master and young ladies all went out to watch the lanterns, leaving the girls at home. It was probably because the owners were in such high spirits that they had not returned home until midnight. The girls were sleepy and hungry, and they didn't dare to go to bed until the master came home, so the girls looked for something to eat in the kitchen. As a result, I searched here and there and found a lot of things, such as dates, peanuts, white fungus, lotus seeds, and various fruits... The girls put them all into the pot and boiled them. It was almost done, and then Put in the balls made from leftover glutinous rice flour during the Chinese New Year, put in sweet fermented rice wine, put in white sugar, then add egg drop, and sprinkle with sweet-scented osmanthus when you put it in the pot. Just when the girls were about to taste it, the master, wife, young master and young lady came back. As soon as they entered the door, they all shouted that they were hungry and wanted something to eat. The girls immediately served the freshly cooked assorted sweet soups for the hosts to enjoy. After eating, everyone praised the assorted sweet soup for its delicious taste and asked, what is it called? The girls couldn't answer. The master said: "Then let's call it 'Giant Soup'!" In this way, eating "Girl Soup" during the Lantern Festival gradually spread from the back street. Later, they imitated each other and became a habit.

At night, young girls meet in the toilet and pig pen to offer sacrifices to Zigu, also known as worshiping the toilet girl, and hold the ji to predict their wisdom, stupidity and marriage when they grow up. According to legend, the toilet aunt named He Mei was a concubine of Li Jing in Shouyang, Shandong Province. Because she could not tolerate Li's wife, she often did dirty things, so she died of grief and anger. Therefore, worshiping Zigu is also called "inviting the girl in the tank".

Memorial of the deceased in Qingming

The folk customs of Ningbo Qingming emphasize the purpose of "thanking the dead and protecting the new life". Ningbo customs emphasize sacrifices, especially worshiping ancestors at their graves. Making Qingming soup rice is the most important thing. Many tourists from home and abroad return to their hometowns to visit their graves during the Qingming festival.

Ningbo people believe that visiting graves is mainly a kind of spiritual comfort, not only for the living, but also for the dead; the purpose of Qingming sacrifices is to "carefully pursue the past". "Careful death" means to seriously organize funerals for parents or ancestors; "Zhuiyuan" means holding sacrificial activities to commemorate meritorious ancestors, which embodies the moral consciousness of being grateful and not forgetting one's roots, and helps to connect the ancients with the present and the predecessors. Establishing harmonious intergenerational relationships with future generations, thereby promoting harmonious relationships between people and between people and nature, is the pillar on which our Chinese nation has been able to develop harmoniously and stably for thousands of years.

The foods that Ningbo people eat during the grave-going festival are green glutinous rice cakes and mochi (black rice) cakes. The mochi must be cut into diamond shapes. When visiting the grave, the weeds are cleared, new soil is shoveled on the top of the grave, and small bamboo shoots with paper balls are inserted to show that future generations have fulfilled their filial piety and worship their ancestors. It also means that the ancestors protect the family's safety and prosperity.

Dragon Boat Race and Dragon Boat Festival

The Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of May is a traditional folk festival. Its original name is Dragon Boat Festival, also known as Duanyang. Calamus and mugwort are placed at the door of each house, which is commonly known as "The sword of calamus kills thousands of demons, and the flag of moxa attracts hundreds of blessings." Some even hang a garlic head under the flag of moxa.

According to legend, this is the day when Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet of the Chu State and a doctor in Sanlu, drowned himself in the Miluo River. To commemorate Qu Yuan, there are folk customs of hanging sachets, eating rice dumplings, and racing dragon boats. The sachet symbolizes Qu Yuan's moral character and fragrant fragrance; the rice dumplings were originally used to prevent fish from eating Qu Yuan's body and later evolved into festival food; the dragon boat rowing symbolizes the race to rescue Qu Yuan.

Ningbo folk custom is that girls in Japan are busy making sachets of various colors such as tiger-shaped, human-child-shaped, chicken-heart-shaped, zongzi-shaped, diamond-shaped, hydrangea-shaped, etc., stuffed with cotton and mixed with fragrant powder. Hanging it on a child's chest or on a bed tent or cradle is said to ward off evil spirits.

In the countryside of Ningbo, there is also the custom of eating "five yellows and six whites". Cucumber, egg yolk, yellow croaker, eel, and yellow clam are called "five yellows". Tofu, wild rice, cabbage, white fish, white chicken, and white pork are called "five yellows". It's called "Liubai" (it varies slightly from place to place).

Every family wraps rice dumplings during the Dragon Boat Festival. The custom of Ningbo people is to wrap the rice dumplings in a square shape with alkaline water. Add an appropriate amount of alkaline water to the glutinous rice and wrap it with old yellow Ruo shells. After cooking, the glutinous rice turns light yellow and is delicious when dipped in sugar.

In addition, the Dragon Boat Festival folk custom in Ningbo also includes the "Dragon Boat Festival". It is on this day that the son-in-law prepares more "Dragon Boat Festival" gifts as gifts to his parents-in-law's house. "Dragon Boat Festival" has four colors in the least and eight colors in the most. Among them, the fish should be in pairs, and the heads and necks of the geese should be painted red. The geese on the road will scream louder and louder, which is called "Hang Bang Goose".

Depicting and making cloth tigers during the Dragon Boat Festival is another folk custom in Ningbo during the Dragon Boat Festival. The tiger, "the king of beasts", is used to suppress the "five poisons" of snakes, centipedes, lizards, spiders and scorpions. On that day, the word "king" was written on the baby's forehead with realgar (to indicate the king of beasts), and some children wore tiger-print clothes and sewed cloth tigers and tiger pillows. Make rice dumplings to make cloth tiger." Slightly different from other places, Ningbo's Dragon Boat Festival tiger engravings are printed in a variety of colors. On paper about four to five inches square, there are pictures of one tiger and one child, one tiger with two children, one tiger with three and four children, two tigers with one child, Two tigers have two children, and two tigers have three and four children. The tigers and children have different postures. There are also story pictures of Li Cunxiao fighting a tiger when he was seven years old, and Yang Xiang saving his father from a tiger.

Mid-Autumn Festival on August 16th

The Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15th is a big festival all over the country, but in Ningbo, the 16th day is the Mid-Autumn Festival.

There are many versions of the reason why Ningbo takes the 16th day as the Mid-Autumn Festival. One of the legends is that August 16th is the birthday of the mother of Yue King Goujian. There is an ancient city called Juzhang in the southwest of Cicheng, where the mother of Yue King Gou Jian lived for a long time. Every August 16th, the King of Yue would celebrate his mother's birthday with her. The content of the birthday celebration is not a big banquet with singing and dancing, but the mother of the King of Yue first teaches her son about his faults, and then the mother and son enjoy the moon together. Once this incident spread, the local people regarded August 16th as a day of kindness and filial piety to listen to their mother's teachings and accompany their elders to enjoy the moon. It has been nearly two thousand years until today. According to "Cixi County Chronicles: Chronicles of the Years": "The Queen Mother of Yue was born on the 16th day of the eighth month, and Gu Siming was born on the 16th day of the eighth month."

Eating moon cakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival represents reunion, and Ningbo moon cakes are made with moss vegetables. , Crystal mooncakes have a unique flavor. At this time, the new duck is fat and tender, and the whole duck stewed with taro seeds is a new delicacy, commonly known as "duck taro". There are folk customs of eating "duck taro" and water mop cake.

Climbing mountains and talking about the Double Ninth Festival

The ninth day of September is the Double Ninth Festival. Our country is a country that attaches great importance to the use of homophony. The homophony of ninety-nine is "jiujiu". In this way, Double Ninth Festival has the meaning of "longevity" and "praying for health and longevity". Therefore, Ningbo people have always respected and celebrated those elderly people who have lived a long life during the Double Ninth Festival.

As for the activities of the Double Ninth Festival, there is a folk song that summarizes the activities of the Double Ninth Festival clearly: "In September, September 9th, climb mountains and drink chrysanthemum wine, wear dogwood to ward off evil, eat Flower cakes bring longevity. "The custom of eating cakes on the Double Ninth Festival is said to have the same pronunciation as "gao", which means "climbing high". Climbing is easy in mountainous areas, but there are many plain areas in Ningbo with no mountains to climb. Eating Double Ninth Cake just satisfies the psychological requirements of people in the plain areas for climbing. People in plain areas and people who are unable to climb high for various reasons borrow the meaning of high through cakes, so eating Double Ninth Cake becomes another expression of climbing.

Finally, this article ends with the words of an anthropologist. Anthropologists have clearly pointed out to us long ago that traditional culture is an established form of existence that preserves the achievements of our ancestors and enables future generations to adapt to society; without traditional culture, modern humans would never be more advanced than great apes. .