Visiting relatives and friends means sitting at a relative's house at noon, and then you can go home after the banquet, which is considered to be finished. The days of visiting relatives are all discussed in advance, and a few days ago are all set in advance. In the past, communication was inconvenient, so I went directly on the same day. The other party knew that someone would come to visit relatives. Communication is convenient now. If you don't go or want to go, you should inform the other party in advance. For example, relatives of my uncle's family went to sit at my uncle's house on the third day, relatives of my aunt's family on the fourth day, relatives of my aunt's family on the fifth day. As long as you arrange the time, you can go.
You can pack your things and visit relatives at 90 in the morning. You can't leave your relatives empty. You should bring gifts, which are usually full. Generally, there should be at least one box of white wine in the gift. In addition to wine, you can also bring some common gifts such as cigarettes, snacks, eggs and milk as appropriate. Of course, if only the women at home go to visit relatives, they don't have to bring wine. However, influenced by son preference, it is generally men who visit relatives. Of course, this gift also changes with the times. I remember when I was a child, I had to bring a live rooster, a big basket of steamed bread and some pig legs when I was rich.
After you have packed your presents, you can start. In the past, the village was poor, and all relatives rode bicycles or even walked. Fortunately, relatives' homes are not far away. Because the distance is "far", a visit to relatives is particularly grand. Nowadays, the means of transportation for visiting relatives have been replaced by electric cars and even cars. Transportation can greatly shorten the distance, not only in space, but also in the mind without space.
It's almost ten o'clock or eleven o'clock when I get to my relatives' house, but it's still some time before lunch time. At this time, the host family will make tea for the visitors and chat while drinking tea. The host family should also invite guests in advance, and the guests are all family members. Accompanying guests should be found one day in advance, because it is not easy to find accompanying guests because the time for visiting relatives is concentrated. I often find one, but someone has already made an appointment to go to someone else's house earlier, so the company is very tight. At this time, the accompanying guests also arrived, mainly to invite guests to tea, chat with guests, and be polite to each other, slightly formal. With the arrival of more and more guests, the chat atmosphere is becoming more and more lively. While chatting with the guests, the main family is preparing meals. In fact, after breakfast in the morning, the host family began to prepare lunch meals for the guests and has been busy all morning. When the host family is busy, there are people who can cook and help with the work. Some guests come early and some late, but even if they come late, they should sit down and have tea before dinner. Men are chatting over tea, women are chatting over melon seeds, and children are playing together. It's so lively!
Seeing that the dishes were almost ready, I began to cook one by one. Stir-fry a dish and serve it. Of course, when serving, you should prepare the table of the Eight Immortals, as well as stools, mazars, wine chopsticks, cups and tea bowls. The white wine you drink should be scalded in a hot water basin first, so as not to be too cold when you drink it! After serving six or eight dishes, guests can sit down first, that is, open the table.
Before taking a formal seat, guests should politely guide them to wash their hands first to show respect or attention. Guests in the bathroom will also be humble to each other. After washing your hands, you should be humble for your seat! People sitting at the table often feel humble for whom to sit for a long time, and often drag people to their seats, or even several people drag one person. Generally, if there are obviously elderly guests or people in the main family, they will definitely sit first. At this time, elderly people will sit down a little humbly; However, if several guests are about the same age as the people accompanying the host family, it is inevitable to "hard pull". According to custom, the seats of the elderly are generally high, the seats of guests are high, and the seats of generations are high; If the guest is much younger than the escort, or even a generation younger, the guest's seat will be low; These "pandering" generally occur when the guests and accompanying guests are peers, but younger. The accompanying guests emphasized respect for the guests and let them sit in their seats, which led to differences. This situation depends on who can insist on persuading or "subduing" the other party.
In my hometown, the square table of the Eight Immortals is used for banquets. Because the entrance of the main room faces south, the first seat is the innermost east seat, the second seat is the innermost west seat, the third seat is next to the east seat, and the fourth seat is next to the west two seats. Conversely, the smallest seat is the seat closest to the door in the west. If it is a single person, the smallest seat is the middle position closest to the door. The young people sitting below are usually accompanying guests, who are responsible for the hot wine, wine and tea at the banquet.
After everyone is seated, they begin to sit down, or take food first (as the saying goes, "Dao" food) or drink first. When taking food, the accompanying guests should politely ask the guests to take more food. At the beginning, especially when hot dishes are just served (because there are many dishes to be cooked, there will be dishes that are not ready after the banquet, and the host family will fry the next dish while drinking), at the initiative of one person, everyone will eat the same dish; You can either eat the same dish or eat your favorite dish according to your taste. Most people put down their chopsticks after eating a bite of food, chatting or drinking, instead of holding them all the time. There are many exquisite drinks at the party. Generally, you should drink a few cups or mouthfuls (when the tea bowl is filled with wine), and then discuss how to drink it. Generally speaking, it is "turning wine", that is, starting with the person with the smallest generation, having a drink or a bite, and then starting with the left wheel or the right wheel. From the left wheel or the right wheel, see which hand of the person who just started drinking holds the wine. If you use your left hand, you can use the left hand wheel, and if you use your right hand, you can use the right hand wheel. After drinking this round, everyone will have dinner and chat, and then drink the second round. After the second round of drinking, the people next to them began to "sit in the village". Everyone took turns to sit in the village and drink for two rounds before the wine was finished. The wine has been mixed, but it's not finished yet. The next project is to find someone to drink. Generally speaking, the host and guests drink first. At this time, the accompanying guests should take the initiative to find one-on-one drinks. Generally, you should drink two glasses when touching (don't touch the first glass of wine, drink two more glasses when touching the second glass of wine). Usually people of similar age drink one-on-one. If their generations are different, they won't drink one-on-one If two people with different generations drink one-on-one, it is usually the elder guests who take the initiative to ask the younger generation to drink two cups, or two people with similar ages but separated by generations can also clink glasses and drink two cups with each other, or the younger generation in the host's home toasts the elder guests with different generations (hometown is called "raising wine"), and after the younger generation in the host's home raises the wine, the accompanying guests raise the wine again.
Raising wine is a highlight of the seat. It depends on the timing when the host raises wine. When everyone at the banquet has finished drinking, find a gap for the old man to lift the wine. The person holding the wine is the little boy in the main family. When lifting wine, you should prepare a small handleless wine cup and hip flask or take a bottle of wine directly, either alone or together. When two people are together, one is holding a hip flask or a wine bottle, and the other is holding a small wine glass. The person with the small glass is responsible for handing it to the person who wants to toast, and the person with the hip flask is responsible for pouring the wine. When pouring wine, the person holding the small glass should hold it with both hands. The specific posture is that the hands are close together and straight, and one side of the little finger touches at right angles. Put the small glass on a flat hand, and gently touch the small glass with the other vertical hand to prevent it from tipping over. And the person holding the hip flask should slowly pour it into the small glass. If a person is holding wine, first put the small glass flat on one hand, then pour it with the other hand, and then both hands become the posture of holding the small glass.
Raise two or four glasses of wine. When lifting four glasses of wine, pour a little from the first glass. As long as there is wine in the glass, the second or third glass in the next cup is a little more than the previous one until the last glass is full. When lifting two drinks, the first one can be a little more, so that the second one can be filled directly. Of course, the amount of wine poured depends on the capacity of the drinker. Pour more if you can, and less if you can't. Guests stand up and take the lifted wine, and some will say some words of blessing to the younger generation, and then generally do it. If they really can't drink, drink less, or take a sip. After drinking the wine, the wine lifter should persuade the guests to order the wine quickly, and then lift the second, third and fourth! These wines are also quite large, and guests sit down or eat vegetables or drink tea to relieve their hangover. When you raise the wine, you should follow the size of the seat. After you toast number one, give wine to number two, and there will be no guests and no guests here. As long as you get older, you will drink the wine raised by the younger generation. But some elderly guests are not allowed to carry it, depending on the situation, but elderly guests must carry it. After toasting all the older people, the rest of the peers or younger generations don't have to toast, but several people have two drinks together. In this way, the wine lifting is over. If all the boys in the main family want to raise wine, the nephew of the main family can also raise wine according to the situation. After everyone in the host's house has lifted it, if some young guests want to raise the wine, they can also raise it, but they are generally not allowed to raise it, because this etiquette is a bit heavy for the guests. However, if some of them insist, they can only lift it for older and older guests.
After everyone drinks, everyone will continue to follow the previous rhythm, or continue to mix drinks or continue to find people to drink one-on-one or several people to drink together. After drinking, everyone will let go, talk more, drink more, and even get drunk. The task of accompanying guests is to make guests drink well, so basically every time they visit relatives, there will always be a drunkard, either a guest or accompanying them. When I was a child, many people were drunk. When visiting relatives in the New Year, people who are drunk can always be seen on the street, and even people who can't walk smoothly can be seen everywhere. And some people are not good at wine, and they like to make trouble when they are drunk. In previous years, there were not a few people who drank and fought, so this time it was also very troublesome. However, now the society advocates healthy living, and fewer people drink, especially those who are drunk. Everyone got a little drunk and stopped drinking, and the accompanying guests didn't try to persuade them as hard as in previous years. This is also the embodiment of social progress.
After everyone finished drinking, they began to eat. Or eat jiaozi (my hometown is called jiaozi steamed buns, also called big steamed buns) or eat steamed buns. I used to eat jiaozi. In recent years, everyone felt that it was troublesome to pack jiaozi, and they all changed to steamed buns. Steamed bread is the kind of machine steamed bread, which is eleven or two centimeters high and six or seven centimeters in diameter. However, my mother has a deep affection for jiaozi and won't be bothered by jiaozi, so every time she holds a banquet at home, it's basically jiaozi, especially when she comes to visit relatives during the New Year. When eating, some people may not finish drinking, so they can continue to drink, which is euphemistically called "Jiaozi wine". After eating jiaozi or steamed bread, everyone can finish dinner, find a place to sit and have tea and chat, and of course, have guests to accompany them. Some guests chatted speculatively and politely invited guests to have tea at home to show their friendliness and hospitality; Some guests go home after eating, especially those who can't drink well.
A few years ago, women waited for men to finish drinking before eating at home, but this was a bad habit in the old society. Now with the improvement of women's social status, the old ideas in my hometown are also changing. Although the seats are dominated by men, men and women have been separated. When men drink, they will also set a table for women and children the same as the main table, so that they will not delay eating. This is also a manifestation of the improvement of social civilization.
When the guests have finished chatting and finished drinking tea, they can get ready to go home. Of course, this also depends on the time. It usually takes two or three hours to sit, but sometimes it takes four or five hours to drink, and then it's over, very late. If it's too late, I'll go straight home after drinking and stop chatting and drinking tea. Most women will watch their men not to get drunk, so as not to go home inconvenient or even make a fool of themselves. When they see something, they will come from outside to remind or even scold them not to drink any more. On the days of cycling, many people got drunk and fell on their bikes. My father made such a fool of himself that he put it on the ground and broke his face. Nowadays, more people ride electric cars or even drive cars, so they dare not drink more or even can't drink. So even if women don't remind them, men will try not to get drunk.
Guests should send some gifts when they go home, which is of course different from the gifts they brought before they came. Have a plenty of directly with a guest's gift for another guest's gift, always can't be the same. Of course, there will inevitably be a struggle for humility when returning the gift. Guests will struggle to get gifts, and the main family will struggle to let guests take them back. This is also an arduous struggle. Finally, it depends on who can persuade or "subdue" who, and some will leave directly by bike, without giving the host a chance to return the gift, thus avoiding some competition. Sometimes the host family or accompanying guests have to push the car to send the guests a long way first, and then they can go their separate ways after leaving the village.
The last guest can't go home until all the guests have gone home. Of course, sitting and chatting in the main house is also very popular. In short, the host family and the accompanying guests will make their own arrangements according to their own situation, and our uncles will usually sit and chat for a while and then disperse. In this way, the noisy day is over. If there are relatives going or coming at home the next day, then continue to prepare for the next day's work until you have visited several relatives.