The ancient society in my hometown

Most of the ancient fairs in Guanzhong were held after the harvest in summer and autumn, which were divided into busy strike fairs and October fairs, and were the annual gathering of cultivators after 1998. The ancient meeting is the product of farming culture, and it is also a unique landscape of Sanqin land. Guanzhong people have been heroic and hospitable since ancient times. As a courtesy, every village has its own ancient meeting. This custom, which has been circulating for thousands of years, is called meeting, also called leaving relatives.

My hometown Dawang Town is a small town in Guanzhong with a history of more than 500 years. As an ancient town, in addition to the annual meeting on August 2, there is a unique ancient meeting-April 6, also called "Busy Meeting". Busy meeting is different from busy strike meeting and October meeting, because the wheat is apricot yellow, busy summer is about to begin, and it is also a gathering for younger generations to visit and greet their elders. Therefore, the busy meeting is also called the son-in-law nephew meeting. If you are a new son-in-law, you need to bring six kinds of gifts, such as steamed stuffed bun, big meat, garlic moss, tobacco and alcohol, and non-staple food. For the first time, the new son-in-law enjoys different treatment. At about three or four o'clock in the afternoon, my mother-in-law will put some poached eggs for her new son-in-law, which means harmony, beauty and harmony for a hundred years. If you want to know if your new son-in-law wants it, just look at the poached eggs in the bowl. There is an old saying in my hometown that "my mother-in-law is as light as an old hen when she sees her new son-in-law", which may be from this.

The town has a profound cultural heritage since ancient times. Both east and west villages in the town have their own theatrical troupes. At every meeting, they will sing for a few days. The enthusiastic king will say to everyone: Come to our theater on April 6th!

Every year after February 2, the dolls break their fingers and look forward to meeting each other. In the third month of the lunar calendar, the weather is getting hotter every day, and housewives of every household will go out to make new clothes for their families. The village troupe rehearsed overtime at night, and the men also accelerated the pace of work. Minced meat noodles are the staple food of Guanzhong people. Every ancient meeting, the meat shelves in the street are also booming. People often say that "one year is hard and poor, and one day is not poor." The hospitable king is as generous as Chinese New Year. You break up with him and go home to take care of him. At that time, the whole town was sour and sweet, and any alley would make your mouth water.

People in Guanzhong are mainly pasta, so it is essential to visit relatives and friends. Li Mo, as big as an old bowl, is a necessary gift for visiting relatives and friends. Hua Mo, the size of a small handleless wine cup, is dominated by birds and animals. Hospitality and ingenuity of Guanzhong housewives steamed several pots of flower buns as gifts.

At the end of March, the man poured a bag of good wheat from the granary. The woman carefully washed it and dried it, and told the man to go to the mill to collect flour with high whiteness. On the fifth day, women make noodles early and men come to help. Alkaline eggs are burned one by one in the stove and rubbed over and over again. When the pH of the equal surface is right, steam one pot of steamed bread first, and then steam two pots of steamed bread. When I was a child, every time my mother steamed steamed steamed buns, our sisters would rush into the kitchen with clean taper combs and thimbles. You are a rabbit, I am a frog, and the taper comb and thimble take turns to go into battle. Soon, the box was full of flower steamed bread in various shapes. In just 20 minutes, the steamed bread was out of the pot and the whole room was filled with wheat fragrance. We happily stayed at the edge of the chopping board, looking for our own works in the dense heat, unconvinced by each other, quarreled, took a steamed bun made by her on the skirt and flew out of the kitchen.

The meeting finally came. Early in the morning, the dolls put on new clothes and walked home in the cooing of their aunts. Housewives began to get busy early in the morning, rolling noodles and cutting vegetables, cleaning up the front and back of the house, and men wiped the table and laid out cigarettes and tea, waiting for relatives to come to the door.

The streets are crowded with people visiting relatives and friends and buying gifts and farm tools. If you buy a straw hat, I will buy a broom. People who know or don't know each other will greet each other and ask about the growth of wheat. On the way to the town, people ride bicycles and walk, and married people with children pull carts and drive carriages. People came to town with smiles and delivery cages full of gifts. Below the theater, sellers of zongzi and leaves, melon seeds and peanuts, popcorn and balloons are all shouting for business. Although the play was in the afternoon, fans from all directions were afraid of falling behind and occupied the place early. The old man wearing a straw hat sat in the crowd, smoking a hookah and chatting about Shaanxi minor. The old lady wore a handkerchief on her head, hemp on her arm, and put her hand on the gazebo to call her second aunt. The dolls frolicked and ran under the stage, drilling around in the crowd, and occasionally attracted a criticism or two.

The food is all ready, and the woman's grandson hasn't come in yet. The impatient mother-in-law rolled up her waist and stood under the gatehouse again and again. She saw the woman with a cage struggling to appear in sight. The mother-in-law greeted her with a big smile and took the cage in the woman's hand. As she walked, she complained: What are you doing with so much? !

After a full meal, men smoke and drink tea, and the topic cannot be separated from crops and harvest. The women sat around the kang, talking about the tight cloth in the shop. The happiest thing is that the dolls ran out of the house again and again and ran to the theater.

After the annual meeting, operas are inseparable from the classic tunes of Shaanxi Opera ―― eldest sister-in-law, third mother teaching children, watching women, Sean selling cloth, killing dogs and persuading wives. Shaanxi opera has added harmonious colors to the ancient society, and people have learned what tolerance and forbearance are in the passionate rhyme of Shaanxi opera.

According to the old man, the ancient society was once banned until the downfall of the Gang of Four. Although it was banned at that time, the persistent Guanzhong people never forgot the customs handed down by their ancestors.

Years later, all this became a memory.

Time flies, and the pace of the times has brought about rapid changes and taken away ancient folk customs. The popularity of television has enriched people's horizons. Without audiences and new forces, the village troupe declined overnight, and the theater was reduced to ashes by a fire in the 1990 s. With the improvement of material life, Li Huahua Mo is no longer the protagonist of the meeting, and even the delivery cage of relatives is nowhere to be found. Instead, there are all kinds of exquisite gifts and plastic bags, less courtesy and less affection. Convenient travel, less long journey, less expectation. In the new century, the land is getting less and less, and the young people in the town have left their homes, or studied or worked, and the old people and children left behind in the village are more and more year by year. I don't know when, or from whom, this ancient society that has been circulating for thousands of years will be forgotten, one, two, three. ...

Ancient society, the product of farming culture, is the totem that people on the yellow land have been looking forward to a bumper harvest for thousands of years. She came from ancient times with faith, vision and beauty, and became the eternal memory of Guanzhong people.