What are the folk customs in Hai'an?

From October to December of the lunar calendar, the main festivals include the October Morning, Laba Festival, Stove Sending, and New Year's Eve. After entering October, villagers start to engage in winter sideline activities, such as knitting dustpans, brooms, cattail slippers, and making waterwheel parts, etc., in preparation for selling at the market next spring. From November to the winter solstice, the cold winter begins. The twelfth month of the lunar calendar is called the twelfth lunar month, from the 20th of the twelfth lunar month to New Year's Eve, days are counted by the number of nights. During this period, each house has to do a thorough cleaning and make steamed dumplings, steamed buns, rice cakes, etc. Some people also pickle salted fish and bacon. Every family has to wash their clothes and bedding on sunny days. The folk song goes, "If you have money but don't have money, wash your clothes and celebrate the New Year." The barber's room and bathroom are extremely busy due to "cutting Yuanbao hair and taking Yuanbao bath". On the nights of the 26th and 27th, some people worship gods and say goodbye to the New Year, and eat New Year wine in shops. From the 20th night to the 29th night, there are full-time night watchmen in the market town, carrying lanterns and banging bamboo sticks to remind people to prevent fire and theft. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, local government departments paid more attention to winter prevention and organized militiamen and staff to perform night patrols to ensure safety and security.

October Dynasty The first day of October in the lunar calendar is called the "October Dynasty". Tombs are swept and filled with tombs within a few days, and sacrifices are similar to the Qingming Festival. On this day, there is a custom of boiling glutinous rice to send flies away. In Hedong, people boil red bean rice to send flies away. The old custom of Fort Li was to hold a city god meeting on this day. In the Hedong area, cattle are washed in October, and the cattle begin their winter rest. Win the weak old cow, often get eliminated.

Winter Solstice Festival The Winter Solstice is around December 22 in the Gregorian calendar. The day before was Xiaodong, and every family worshiped their ancestors and burned paper. On the winter solstice, also known as the Great Winter, there is a custom of eating glutinous rice dumplings in the morning in various places. In the evening, there will be a reunion banquet, and all shops and workshops will have "winter wine", which is commonly known as "the winter is as big as the new year". There is also a winter worship ritual in Hedong. Starting from the Winter Solstice Festival, it is the number nine of the winter solstice. On the day of the winter solstice, the day is the shortest and the night is the longest, so there is a proverb: "Don't sit at night during the winter solstice, and don't cycle at the summer solstice."

The eighth day of the twelfth lunar month in Laba is said to be the day when Sakyamuni Buddha became enlightened. . The folk imitate the custom of temple shops and cook "Laba porridge" with glutinous rice, soybeans, peanuts, arrowheads, green vegetables, red beans, etc.; the wealthy households who are particular about adding red dates, chestnuts, fruits, herbs, mushrooms, fungus, etc., call it "Laba porridge". Eight-treasure porridge". Buddhist believers eat noodles in the evening to wish "Infinite Life Buddha". Other families also have banquets. Today, the custom of eating Laba porridge is still the same.

On the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, families send stoves to each other and pray to the Stove King that "God will say good things and the lower world will be safe." The sacrificial offerings are generally four plates: malt sugar (glued to seal the mouth of the Kitchen Lord), tea and rice (symbolizing a safe life), tofu (a homophone of "rich"), red beans and crushed straw (the feed of the Kitchen God's horse). Hedong people also provide distiller's grains. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, this custom gradually disappeared.

New Year's Eve The 30th day of the twelfth lunar month (the smallest month is the 29th) is New Year's Eve, commonly known as "Thirty Nights". The day before New Year's Eve is Little New Year's Eve, and most families worship their ancestors at noon; some families worship their ancestors at noon on New Year's Eve. On this day, old rice is cooked and put into an "old rice bowl". Every household is busy before New Year's Eve. Steaming cakes, making New Year dishes, frying peanuts, broad beans, fried rice, buying tea and snacks, buying New Year goods, etc. must all be prepared at this stage. On New Year's Eve, it is an old custom to put red paper, yellow paper decorations and sesame straw on the eaves of each house, and to paste red wedding paper, Spring couplets and door gods on the door; "The homophony of ". The Spring Festival couplets in mourning homes are pasted with yellow paper in the first year, green paper in the second year, and red paper after the third year of mourning. Every house is cleaned and tidied inside and outside, and "Yuanbao Zunzi", or "Qilin footprints", are made with lime wrapped in cattail bags outside the door and at the end of the field. On the night of New Year's Eve, people pay respect to their ancestors and receive the Stove God, and families hold a banquet to sit down and enjoy the "wine to celebrate the new year." The New Year's Eve dinner is usually cooked in large quantities, and the remainder is reserved as "old rice" for the New Year; the crispy rice should be kept in one piece, called "rice root", and served on a plate, with cypress branches, sesame seeds, and garnished with ginkgo, Peanuts, copper coins, yellow paper stickers, and a statue of the God of Wealth, named "Chen Rice Bowl", are placed on the sacred cabinet. After the banquet is over, the kitchen is cleaned, the stove surface and pot are cleared, and the water jar and chopsticks bucket are filled. Before going to bed, the elders should give "New Year's money" to the younger ones; put candies, dates, longevity fruits (peanuts with shells) on each pillow for the New Year's Eve to eat on the pillow; and put new clothes, new clothes and Hats, new shoes and socks for the new year. Some people in Hedong stay up all night and wait for the day, which is called "watching the New Year's Eve", and the New Year's money is not distributed until after breakfast on the first day of the Lunar New Year. On New Year's Eve, the sound of firecrackers continued all night long. After the founding of New China, superstitious activities on New Year's Eve were basically abolished. After the 1980s, television sets became widely popular in urban and rural areas, and it became a new trend for families to watch CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala program on New Year’s Eve.

“Haian Flower Drum” is Haian’s cultural brand. It has participated in special performances for central leaders at Huairen Hall in Zhongnanhai, Beijing; participated in the National Day 50th Anniversary Gala in Tiananmen Square; sang and danced in national folk squares across the country In the competition, he won the "Mountain Flower Award", the highest award for folk literature and art in the country; in the "Stars Award", the highest government award for mass culture of the Ministry of Culture, he won the gold medal of the "Stars Award"; and also competed with 13 artists from five continents and domestically. More than 60 song and dance performance teams from various provinces and cities participated in the costumed marching performance of the International Tourism and Culture Festival sponsored by the Beijing Municipal People's Government on Ping'an Street in Beijing. People have closely linked the "Hai'an Flower Drum" with the cultural image of Hai'an, a new city on the river and sea.

The spread of "Hai'an Flower Drum" in Hai'an can be traced back to the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty. "Ming Zhai Zhenshi·Guangling Rhymes" has "The flower drum has been passed down for thirty years, and it has changed many times. "Male, then female, first day, then night, first country, then town, first village folk, then dandy brother". The branch of "Hailing Bamboo Branches" written in the third year of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty (1864) said: "The village held a meeting when it was safe, and they sang and danced with witchcraft year after year. They beat the town drums and all the Lu language was so loud that people could not sleep at night." It shows that at that time. Flower drum has been widely spread. As late as the 1930s and 1940s, flower drum activities in the oblique area of ??Hoi An Cape were still very active. It can be deduced from this that the flower drum has been spread in Hai'an area for more than 400 years.

"Hai'an Flower Drum", like "Donkey Flower Drum" in northern Jiangsu, "Fishing Basket Flower Drum" and "Luozi Flower Drum" in southern Jiangsu, were all operas accompanied by singing and dancing before the Ming Dynasty. The main part of the performance is the "two small plays" that once become ugly or the "three small plays" that once become ugly for life. "Hai'an Flower Drum" belongs to the latter. The main part of the flower drum performance is played by the red lady (dan), Sao Dazi (ugly), and Xianggong (sheng). The song and dance performance is called "Shangyanggu" or "playing field". Today's "Hai'an Flower Drum" is the development and innovation of the song and dance performance. Since folk dance has distinct regional and national characteristics, "different styles are different in ten miles, and different customs are different in hundreds of miles" leads to "different flower dances in ten miles". During the more than 400 years that Hai'an flower drums have been spread in Hai'an, they have been influenced by the natural environment and humanistic environment of this specific region. They represent village girls living in a land of plenty with clear streams and lush fields, facing the sea and facing away. The life of fisherwomen in the Yellow Sea fishing village in Gianzhuang shows their passionate and unrestrained yet gentle and tender personalities. In particular, the dance language of "nodding, shaking shoulders, stretching arms, and stretching wrists" that expresses village girls and fisherwomen weaving nets in front of flowers and under the moon, and "the hips come out first when wanting to move, and then tremble slightly", vividly reproduce the village girls. The leisurely and contented working life of fisherwomen contains the joyful feelings of village girls and fisherwomen living a prosperous life. The individual characteristics of each form of this "Hai'an Flower Drum" are different from the indulgence of "Donkey Flower Drum", but highlight the simple and innocent, dignified and gentle inner world of village girls and fisherwomen in this region. It belongs to the kind of people who "get the beauty of yin and softness" as described by Yao Nai, a scholar of the Tongcheng School in the Qing Dynasty. Its emotion and momentum show "like the sun rising in the east, like the wind, like clouds, like clouds, like smoke, like the winding waves of the secluded forest, like the rippling waves, like the brilliance of pearls and jade, like the cry of swans entering the corridor" Feminine beauty.

In the late 1950s, the Haian Cultural Center began to collect and sort out the "Hai'an Flower Drums". With the development of the economy, the progress of the times, and the rapid progress of people's social lifestyles and aesthetic tastes, it has continued to inherit Develop in the process of development and innovate in the process of development. It has successively won awards in provincial and municipal performances for its male and female group dance "Spring Festival Flower Drum" and plot dance "Flower Drum Love" and other stage performances, and has been well received in Jinjing performances. In recent years, it has integrated the essence of flower drum performances from all over Jiangsu, with Jiangsu folk music as the main melody, and arranged it into a costumed marching performance phalanx with 320 people participating in the performance and a square folk dance with 40 people participating. It has won many national performing arts competitions. Show off your style, win awards, and become a nationally renowned Haian cultural brand.

From the first lunar month to March, the main festivals include the Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, February 2, Qingming Festival, etc. In the first month of the year, the festival atmosphere is very strong. Most people visit relatives and friends during the New Year. People enjoy entertainment, drinking spring wine, playing mahjong, beating gongs and drums, playing with lanterns... the atmosphere is quite prosperous. There is a lantern period in the middle of the first lunar month. From the first half of the first lunar month to the beginning of February, farmers plant trees one after another. In March, grave sweeping is the main activity before and after the Qingming Festival, and kites are also popular. In addition, in the old custom, February 12th was regarded as the "Hundred Flowers Birthday". People would hang small red strips of cloth on their own fruit trees and flowers, called "hanging red", to pray for hundreds of flowers to bloom and the branches to be full of fruits. This custom is no longer popular today.

Spring Festival is the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar, formerly known as New Year's Day (division), commonly known as the first day of the Lunar New Year. According to the old custom, old people lie in bed in the early morning to listen to the sounds of animals in nature to predict their luck for the year. Every household rushes to burn incense and fire cannons to connect heaven and earth. Especially those who get up early to burn the "first incense" mostly pray for a male child or good fortune. It is customary for people in Hedong to get up late. Every household does not get up until three o'clock in the morning. In the morning, the housewife goes into the kitchen and cooks fried eggs, warm fruit tea, and hot white soup pork with "Chen Huo" and gives them to the elderly at home to eat while sitting on the bunk. Others eat red date tea, ingot tea, and glutinous rice balls after getting up. After breakfast, young and middle-aged people from each household in a natural residential area went in groups to visit each other to pay New Year greetings. The hosts entertained them with cigarettes, tea, peanuts, candies, etc. Stores in towns and cities send red New Year greeting cards to each other and throw them through the cracks in their doors. At noon, incense is burned to worship the gods (also known as "Xia Sheng" to thank the gods). No sweeping the floor, no splashing water, no scales, or scissors before lunch. It is still customary to eat old rice on the first day of the Lunar New Year. People in Hebei eat old New Year's Eve rice and leftovers (called "Xiasheng rice") for lunch, and noodles (called longevity noodles) for dinner; people in Henan and Hedong eat old rice in the evening and noon. Eat glutinous rice (or sticky rice). It is customary to have dinner in advance and go to bed without lighting the lamp, thinking that this will reduce mosquitoes in summer. Starting from the second day of the Lunar New Year, families visit relatives and friends one after another and pay New Year greetings to each other. On the second day of the Lunar New Year, if etiquette is unavoidable, the tenants will go to the landlord's or boss's house to pay New Year's greetings. The son-in-law will bring his wife and children to pay New Year's greetings to his parents-in-law, and the nephews in Hedong area will pay New Year's greetings to his uncle's parents. Relatives and friends invite each other for spring wine, which is called "spring feast", usually until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. The rural areas of Hedong area call spring wine "dragon lantern", which lasts until half of February. On the second day of the Lunar New Year, farmers go to the Tu Tu Temple (ancestral temple) to offer incense to the Tu Tu Gong, Tu Tu Niang Niang and Pa Wa Master, praying for good weather and no insect infestation in the fields. The store then worshiped Xuantan Bodhisattva (that is, the God of Wealth, Mr. Zhao Gongming) every day and held a banquet to entertain the employees.

The fifth day of the first lunar month is the "God of Wealth Day", also known as the "Fifth Road Day", when shops open for business. Shop owners attach great importance to "respecting the God of Wealth". From the fourth night of the Lunar New Year, statues of the God of Wealth are posted on the doors of each store. Shopkeepers bathe and change clothes, some stay up all night, and prepare three animal sacrifices (pig head, rooster, flower fish, commonly known as "six eyes"). They get up in the middle of the night to burn incense to "receive the God of Wealth", and the sound of firecrackers is endless.

If a woman comes to buy the first business of the New Year, it is called "Man (mother) business" and the price is favorable. Poor folk artists also wore costumes, played the God of Wealth and beat gongs, and went to various stores to perform to attract wealth and collect rewards, which was called "Dancing to the God of Wealth". In the evening, the shop owner treated his employees to "God of Wealth Wine".

Hai'an custom regards the first to fifth day of the Lunar New Year as the "Five Day Year", and people all wear new clothes, new hats and new shoes. Because "cotton" and "mildew" are homophonic, cotton shoes are taboo in some areas. People in Hebei hang red lanterns in front of the eaves of every house. From the first night of the first lunar month to the eighteenth day of the first lunar month, the lanterns are lit, which is called "Sky Lantern Lighting".

Lantern Festival The fifteenth day of the first lunar month is the Lantern Festival, also known as the Lantern Festival and the Lantern Festival. "The lanterns go up on the thirteenth and the lanterns go down on the eighteenth." This period is the lantern flowering period, with the climax on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. During this period, farmers hang red paper lanterns on bamboo poles (covered with rain hats) and light them every night to pray for a good harvest. If you are suffering from eye disease and pray to God to make a wish, it will be from the 1st to the 30th day of the Lunar New Year. During the Lantern Festival, in addition to lighting up and watching lanterns, people eat glutinous rice flour dumplings in the morning and fried dumplings, peanuts, broad beans, ginkgo and other foods in the evening. During the Lantern Festival, there is a common food custom of "lighting up the dumplings and falling off the dumplings".

On the evening of the Lantern Festival, farmers would tie up grass handles more than ten feet long and light them, then wave them on their fields and call them "fried sesame skewers." Usually the hemp string is tied into twelve sections. If it is a leap year, one more section must be tied and two small firecrackers are set off in each section. Farmers waved and sang "Shao Huang Yao", such as "On the first half of the first month, fried sesame skewers, picked up the ears and weighed half a catty, and dad weighed them to grandma"; "On the first half of the first month, fried sesame skewers, other people's dishes cost copper coins, but mine The vegetable basket is big; other people’s vegetables are rotten, and my vegetables are sold on the street.” Fried sesame skewers are also called "fried sesame skewers" or "set fire" in some places. Folks use hemp string flames to predict the success of the year. Deep red indicates drought, and pale white indicates floods.

February 2: On the second day of the second month of the lunar calendar, each family will take their married daughters back to their parents’ homes to rest for different lengths of time. There is a folk song in Hebei that goes, "On February 2, every family goes boating and takes their daughter with them." There is a folk song in Hedong that goes like this: "Pick wormwood, make cakes, and take care of your daughter. If you don't take your daughter, you will be a poor dog." It's another day, and matchmaking is active in Hedong and Henan areas. As the saying goes, "On the second day of February, when the dragon raises its head, Wang Baozhao throws colorful balls from the embroidery tower."

Qingming Festival is around April 5th in the Gregorian calendar. On this day, every household often set up offerings to worship ancestors, which is called "respecting ancestors".

On Qingming Day, it is customary for women and children to wear cauliflowers and willows. They eat buckwheat noodles and willow leaf pancakes in the morning. There is a folk saying that "if you don't wear willows during Qingming, you will turn into a leprosy dog ??after death." Ten days before and after Qingming Festival, each family sweeps the tomb, hangs silk, puts up small flags, burns paper and foil, and adds earth and roof to the old tomb. In the three years after the burial of the deceased, the children of the deceased have to hold wine and sacrifices while sweeping the grave. The first three years before and after are called the new grave, the middle grave and the full grave respectively. The day before Tomb Sweeping Day is the "Cold Food Festival", no fireworks are lighted and only cold food is eaten. After the Republic of China, it was not taken seriously, and some people changed it to eating cold food in the afternoon of Qingming Day.