Prose essays by Muge Sanbao

Muge Town is an "important town" in the south of Hong Kong. When mentioning Muge, people always talk about the "Three Treasures of Muge": fragrant and sweet jade cane, and natural "treasure" grass. The seats and the enclosed house are famous far and near.

Jade cane is also known as white jade cane. It is rare and valuable. Its only place of origin is wooden lattice. It is very picky about the planting environment. It needs bright sunshine, gentle wind, moderate sand content, sufficient water, and The drainage is convenient and the land is fertile, which requires sugarcane farmers to cultivate intensively, take care of it carefully, and take care of it attentively. When the harvest is in late autumn, the nine-foot white jade sugarcane will gather all the essence of nature. Jade sugarcane is as clear and moist as white jade, with a slight golden color; the sugarcane stems have long internodes, thin skin, and white and tender sugarcane flesh. It is fragrant, sweet and crisp, juicy and refreshing. When eaten, it can quench thirst, clear the heart and moisten the lungs, and has the effect of relieving hangover. Jade cane is rich in iron, calcium, phosphorus, manganese, zinc and other trace elements. The iron content ranks first among fruits and is known as the "blood-tonifying fruit"; its unique origin and unique planting (using unique "tie bundles" "Planting technology), unique taste, and unique nutrition are much better than other sugar canes. It is called a treasure among sugar canes and the well-deserved "King of Sugar Cane." Jade cane is exported to Kunming, Beijing, Dalian, the Pearl River Delta and other places, and the price is higher than other fruit cane. It has been exported to various places for many years, but so far no jade cane has been planted in other places (or the planting has been unsuccessful). Perhaps this is the old saying. A "rare gift" from God to the Muge people.

Previously, I have "drawn" an article about "White Jade Cane". Let me add a few words about straw mats and enclosed houses.

According to Muge locals, mat grass is planted in early spring every year. By the eighth or ninth month of the lunar calendar, the grown mat grass is most suitable for weaving mats. The grass is long, well-proportioned and "fat". After drying, the straw mat is woven, which is thick and strong, comparable to "Optimus Prime" in Transformers. The first time I saw a Muge straw mat weaving workshop was one day in the late autumn two years ago. I went to the countryside with a friend from the immigration office to see the progress of the project. My purpose was to see the straw mat workshop, and it would be best to have a Have a little knowledge of the weaving craft.

When we arrived at the place, my friends wanted to see the progress of the cement road around the village, so I proposed to walk around the village by myself; they looked at their roads, and I looked at the craftsmanship I wanted to see. We agreed to visit Wherever they met, they split into two groups. I visited several houses, but the doors were either closed or open, and no one answered my greetings. Later, people's voices and laughter came from a blue brick house. I went in and saw two aunts, an old woman and several children making sesame cakes around a large vat and a small vat; there were still people in the kitchen. There is an uncle making pancakes. I asked to go to the countryside to see the project, and the villagers enthusiastically shouted to sit down. An aunt went to pour water, and the uncle in the kitchen brought out a few fried pancakes for me to eat. I drank water, held the cakes in my hands, and asked what festival we were planning to celebrate after making so many cakes. The aunts laughed and said, "It's a happy event. The cement road has just been opened, so the convoy to welcome the bride can move easily." After talking for a while, I asked about the straw mat workshop. The old lady smiled and said, there is one at home; then she pointed to a room in the corner, and that was it. Then, she patted the flour on her hands and led me to see it with the children.

Opening the door of the workshop, under the gray light, you can see a crude straw mat weaving machine made of big wood, like a large single pole, about one and a half meters high, like this all year round. Weaving makes the crossbar of the machine very smooth and golden. The craft of weaving straw mats is somewhat similar to that of weaving cloth with a loom. Use a wooden post to tie a hemp rope and hang it from the top post of the machine. The hemp rope is passed through a large horizontal bar with even holes; take a mat The grass is shuttled into the "hemp rope array", and is pressed from top to bottom with a large horizontal bar (pressing hard back and forth) until it is dense, and another straw mat is passed through. In this way, the ropes are entangled thread by thread, grass by grass, and after a lot of effort, a straw mat is made. Most of the mats are woven with a width of 1.8 meters or 1.5 meters. A top-quality straw mat can be sold for one or two hundred yuan.

Wooden grids have a long history of growing mats and weaving mats, and are a famous mat base in Guangxi. They are deeply loved by people because of their soft texture, warmth in winter and coolness in summer. However, in recent years, due to competition from new products such as bamboo mats and bluegrass mats, as well as straw mats from other regions, the market share of wooden mats has become smaller and smaller. The reason may be due to the single variety and monotonous color. , In contrast, products from Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang include bed mats, pillow mats, sofa mats, etc., both foldable and flat-folded, with many varieties, patterns, and colors, so it is naturally a good choice. Massive consumers, big market. Secondly, relying on manual weaving, the technology is backward, the efficiency is low, the cost is high, and the enthusiasm for production is not strong.

But then again, all simple and good things have their own reasons for being passed down. There are always people who are looking for the bed and mat that are suitable for them to sleep on, even if they search again and again, You have to find it before you are willing to do it; people who like wooden lattice straw mats just like it, and they will never get tired of nostalgia. It is for this reason that those weavers of wooden lattice straw mats gathered at the grass roots have been "telling" the story of the wine-scented alley in obscurity for decades.

Guigang TV station has recorded and broadcast a series of documentaries about love, including a section about life on straw mats and love like water. The male protagonist is called Lao Yang, a disabled person who became blind due to eye disease when he was a child. Lao Yang has been very sensible since he was a child. When he was a teenager, he started to help his parents weave straw mats. He picked up the mats and felt them one by one and put them on the loom. He often wears clothes out of bounds, but his parents always encourage him. Later, when Lao Yang grew older and became stronger, he changed his job as a mat presser. When his mother passed through a mat, he would press it tightly.

When Lao Yang came of age, his peers in the village got married one after another, but he didn't dare to think about it. All he could think about was how to weave straw mats and sell them for more money to support himself. However, things are unpredictable. There was a similarly disabled woman named Sanmei in a neighboring village. After being introduced to Lao Yang by a matchmaker, she often came to see him lamely, helping him weave straw mats and wash his clothes... In the end, she fell in love with him. Finally got married. After getting married, Lao Yang and Sanmei spent several decades weaving straw mats while I weaved mats. They raised two sons and three daughters by weaving straw mats, and all of their children became monks and established careers.

Nowadays, Lao Yang and his wife are still living in the old house, weaving their straw mats and living their lives; they are used to living in the old house and do not want to "influence" their children. Old Yang Chang said, it has been difficult for the third sister in the past few decades. Now that she is older, he hopes that she will be healthy and safe, and live a normal life without disaster or disease. The third sister also said that she couldn't explain why she followed Lao Yang in the first place. After decades, she didn't feel anything happened anymore. Now, seeing him sleeping peacefully at night, I sleep peacefully too, I'm used to it... …I think that weaving straw mats has been integrated into the blood of this couple and their years together, including the past, present and future. As long as there is life, weaving will not stop; every passing mat, Every muffled sound of the not-too-heavy horizontal bar being pressed down seemed to praise the years spent by this couple "weaving". They were weaving straw mats, and they were also weaving life, love, happiness and dreams.

At present, the straw mats sold in the market are "a mixed bag". It is not easy to find authentic hand-woven wooden lattice straw mats. If you are not discerning, you have to ask an acquaintance to help you buy them. I once asked an eldest sister from Muge to help me buy a 1.5-meter-wide straw mat. The eldest sister smiled and said, "This is the right person. Her mother used to be an expert at weaving straw mats, but she hasn't done it for many years." , but there were some "old friends" she knew who were making it up, so she asked her to call her "partners" to help make up a good one. After braiding, the eldest sister's old mother boiled water to scald the straw mat (this way, the straw mat would not attract insects and would be more durable), then dried it in the sun and asked someone to bring it to the county seat. When I got it in my hand, it was indeed thick and dense, simple and practical, not fancy at all. After using it, it is as expected from the "legend" that it is warm in winter and cool in summer. When you lie down and breathe calmly, you can still vaguely smell a faint scent of matting; for children who grew up in the countryside, like me (now a real uncle), it is really good for sleep and "weaving" continuous sweet dreams. . Think about it, you can sleep on a straw mat for more than ten or twenty years. It’s really nice and comfortable!

There are many old buildings in Hong Kong that are of some origin and value. Not to mention the ancient wharf, Yakui archway, Anlan Pagoda, and Jujing in Nanjiang Village, or the thousand-year-old Nanshan Temple (according to research, there is a small fern-like pine tree in this royal temple, but it has grown old and blinked. It has lived for more than a thousand years, which led to the birthday greeting sentence "live as long as the immortal pine in Nanshan") etc. Even the old houses scattered in other villages are worth mentioning, such as Bao Bao in Liujiang Village, Wattang Township. Sima Di, the "Big Ear House" in Chensuo Village, Pingyue Township, and the "Junzidong Hakka Enclosed House Group" in Yundong Village, Muge Town, etc.

The Bao Simadi Building Complex in Wattang Township underwent a large-scale renovation in the late Qing Dynasty. There are more than 100 houses with walls, doors, windows, carved beams and painted buildings. They are extremely exquisite, and the inscriptions on the forehead of Mo Qian, a Jinshi from Guanyang, are all included. clearly visible. The Bao family was originally from Fengyang Prefecture, Anhui Province. The ancestor Bao Yu followed Zhu Yuanzhang and fought in the north and south. He made many military exploits and was awarded the title of "General Wu Yi". After his descendants moved to Guigang, they hid in front of Fenghuang Mountain in the Yaji Mountains for safety. .

The "Big Ear House" in Pingyue Township is also a Sima building complex (the ancestors of the Yang family once served as Sima of the prefecture in the middle of the Qing Dynasty), with a history of two to three hundred years; interestingly, From a distance, the main building looks like a big hat with four ears, so the locals call it the "Big Ear House". Less than a hundred meters away, there is an ancient well and square pool, four or five meters long and wide. It is said that it was dug during the Song and Yuan Dynasties.

Compared with these old buildings, the characteristics of the Junzidong Hakka enclosed houses in Muge Town are outstanding in their large number and architectural features. Junzidong has nearly twenty Hakka enclosed houses, making it the largest group of Hakka enclosed houses in Guangxi. There are many cities, large scale, exquisite design, well-protected and rich cultural heritage... forming an extremely unique and rare Hakka cultural landscape. According to the "Gui County Chronicle", the Junzidong Enclosed House Group was built in the early years of Xianfeng Dynasty and had several glories. It was awarded the title of "Cultural Township" in the late Qing Dynasty.

Among the many enclosed houses, the one with the most classic residential style, the grandest architectural scale, the best preservation, and the most representative one is Mast City where Li Taikang’s former residence is located. During the Xuantong period, Li Geng and Yang Cai were outstanding scholars and passed the Tribute Examination (only 20 people from Guixian County in the Ming and Qing dynasties passed the exam). In order to show their appreciation, the government allocated special funds to build two four-foot-high masts in front of the Crescent Pond in Lijia City. The civilian officer dismounted from the bridge and the military attache dismounted.

Mast City highlights the characteristics of the word "wai" in Hakka architecture. It relies on crescent pond, large city walls, gun towers, gun holes, dog holes, outer city gates, drag cage gates, etc. for defense. The front door tower is tall, and the door platform is higher than the corridor. There are two top beams and stone pillars on the door platform, which stand tall and support the sky. The four eaves on the top of the gate tower are raised like an eagle spreading its wings. On the top of the outer wall, there are exquisite paintings of people, birds, animals, flowers and two dragons playing with pearls along the wall. The door frame is carved with solid bluestone strips, and three mechanisms are set up to ensure that the courtyard door is intact. The first Shangxiaguan pass: several thick columns are inserted directly from the stone holes above to the stone nests below the door frame to form a fence. The second is the left and right switch: a drag cage made of thick logs pulls the switch horizontally from one side to the other.

The third door is the front and rear closing, a double thickened door that is operated from the inside. The architectural shape, details and artistic decoration of Mast City are more ingenious and charming, which can be called a magical touch and the finishing touch. The eaves and wings, exquisite carvings, painted walls, masts, square wells, rice mills, blue bricks and stone strips, copper locks, ancient bed and chair stands, stables and horse buildings, straw mat weaving machines, etc. are traditional features. Well worth watching.

The Hakka people attach great importance to the custom of "lighting up lanterns". From the ninth to the thirteenth day of the first lunar month, it will be lively for several days. Before lighting up the lanterns, the host usually buys an exquisite lantern from a folk artist, and hangs the lantern in the upper hall of the old ancestral hall with a large kerosene lamp rope dyed red. The lantern is about one meter high, with a bamboo basket frame covered with colored paper and divided into layers, like a small round building with many little dolls on it; the lantern is about the same size as the lantern drum, the lantern is round and the drum is square. There is a lamp skirt underneath, and guessing poems are written vertically around the lamp skirt to attract people to guess.

Junzi Dong’s lighting of lanterns is particularly popular among Hakka people. Before lighting up the lanterns, the family that gave birth to a child should bring rich offerings to the family that lit up the lanterns last year, go to the ancestral hall to worship and put down the lanterns; then carry the tributes to the walled city where the ancestral temple is located to worship and light up the lanterns, and then return to the place where the lanterns are. During the siege, the ancestral halls for worship and lighting were complicated, and the firecrackers were all packed in sacks. Every besieged city was crowded with people, guns were firing, gunpowder smoke filled the sky, and red confetti littered the ground. Every city is full of big fish and meat, the aroma of wine is overflowing, guessing games are everywhere, and laughter is everywhere...

On the day of lighting up the lanterns, the lanterns are hung high in the ancestral halls, the smoke is rising, the gongs and drums are noisy, inside and outside, The crowds of people were surging, exaggerating the festive atmosphere of the Hakka festival. The most lively part is the lantern reception, with loud gongs and drums, lion dances and firecrackers, fancy costumes, eye-catching and dazzling, crowds of people and noisy skyrocketing. For a week before and after hanging the lanterns, the lights in the ancestral hall must be kept brightly lit every day.

The architecture of the Junzidong enclosed houses incorporates a lot of Confucian and Taoist culture, emphasizing the "balance of yin and yang" and the unity of heaven and earth. The ancient precepts posted on the walls show this, "Be careful to pursue the past, respect the ancestors, and live in harmony with the ancestors." "The harmony of a small family builds the harmony of everyone" (to this effect), "Poverty does not destroy ambition, fidelity rejects luxury, faith is fundamental, and life is magnanimous." I've been there several times, and every time I feel like it's hard for my eyesight to see, and there's always so much to see. When I'm in the enclosed house, I often feel like I've forgotten the passage of time, and I'm in a trance, and the earth's rotation has stopped.

As time goes by, the enclosed house becomes more and more romantic. The beauty of the Hakka enclosed house is all in the word "Wei"!