Why do boys hang lanterns? China is vast in territory and abundant in resources, and customs vary from place to place. Every holiday, all localities will hold various ceremonies to celebrate the festival, and there are many customs worth knowing. Let's see why boys hang lanterns.

Why do boys hang lanterns at 1? This is the traditional grand festival of Beiliu. Whenever the tenth day of the first month comes, the streets are full of lanterns for anyone to buy. Generally, people who light lanterns buy two or three light zones, and people who light lanterns buy two or three lights. At 10: 00 on the first day of the first month, they put colorful paper lanterns in the owner's office, one in the ancestral hall and the other in the main hall at home.

According to the custom, if the newborn born in the previous year is a boy, the boy's family will hang lanterns on the tenth day of the first lunar month of the following year, commonly known as "hanging lanterns".

Therefore, every day on the tenth day of the first month, the family will hold a lantern festival and drink a wedding banquet. If it's a little boy who hasn't had a full moon on the tenth day of the first month, he won't be able to hang up the lights until the tenth day of the first month of next year. It's called hanging old lights. This hanging wine is equivalent to the full moon wine in other places, but its characteristic is that boys born in the same year, no matter which month or day, have to wait until the tenth day of the first month to hang the lights.

Lights in Lingnan folk have the meaning of "lighting" and "mending the sky": lighting lamps has the meaning of illuminating the future; The homonyms of "Deng" and "Ding" are the same or similar, and both mean to have a boy. In our Beiliu village, urban and rural customs call the 10th day of the first month "lighting" day, and the 16th day of the first month "turning off the lights" day. "On the 10 day, every child bought paper and hung lanterns to celebrate the ancestral temple. In ancient times, the Lantern Festival stole wealth, which made people have children under the bed.

And this time, the size of the hotel in the city, all full. Some booked wine tables a month ago, ranging from a dozen tables to hundreds. Some hotels have four rounds, with tables at 9: 00 am, 12: 00 pm, 3: 00 pm and 6: 00 pm. Everyone has three aunts, six grandmothers, seven uncles and eight uncles, all of whom have husbands and hung up the lights. Congratulations, red envelopes and a wedding banquet. People in the city go to restaurants, while people in the countryside go from village to village, which is very lively. Some people say that this is the "drinking day" for Beiliu people.

The difference between Beiliu and Zhongli

Shangli: including Zheng Ping, Liu Jing, Baima, Dalun, Wanqing, Shiwo, Fuxin and Dongsha;

Li Xia: Compared with Shangli, it is a narrow term of Beiliu North 10 Town. Including Beiliu City and its Xinrong, Min 'an, Minle, Shanwei, Xileng, Xinwei, Dali, Beiliu, Tangan and Qingshuikou.

Zhongli: including Longsheng, Dapowai, Liu Ma and Xinfeng.

Drinking wine, in addition to carrying the tradition, can also chat with relatives and friends who have not met for a long time, and even the younger generation can discuss the benefits, which is also a kind of enjoyment!

Hanging Lantern Festival, we saw joy, but also saw the inheritance of traditional folk customs. However, behind this is the efforts of this group of people. They work hard, get up early to make lanterns, and are too busy to delay the auspicious day of lighting.

This kind of lantern looks simple, but the manufacturing process is complicated. Lanterns are tied with bamboo and covered with festive figures or auspicious decals and canopies. Don't underestimate such lanterns. It's all handmade, from broken bamboo sticks to light bones to decals. The whole production process needs hundreds of processes: bamboo cutting, bamboo sawing, bamboo rod breaking, green removal, disinfection, marking, bamboo drying, paper cutting, carving and coloring. ...

There are many stresses in the production process: if you choose bamboo, you need to find bamboo with head and tail, long bamboo joints, moderate hardness and no pests; Broken bamboo strips should be removed from the bamboo to prevent skidding, disinfection and insect prevention; Design the shape and size of the lamp before binding the lamp bone; The lamp bone should be tightly tied, the rhythm should be compact and the size should be accurate; Paste installation should be from the inside out, from top to bottom, step by step, etc.

Many people choose to quit this industry because they are too troublesome, too hard or for other reasons, so there are fewer and fewer people making lanterns now. Therefore, every lantern now is precious.

Why do boys hang lanterns? The custom of hanging lanterns is one of its colorful folk customs. Every year around the Lantern Festival in the first month, whenever there is a "Tianding" (that is, a boy is born), a new lantern (harmonious "Ding Xin") will be hung in front of the ancestral hall and memorial tablet to convey the good news of adding a new tripod to the ancestors, also known as "hanging lanterns" and "chandeliers".

The origin of "hanging lights"

In Hakka dialect, "Deng" is a homonym of the dialect "Ding", and it is also a symbol of light, hope, igniting a prairie fire and endless life. Hakka people came all the way from the land where they lived in the Central Plains, and finally settled at the intersection of Fujian, Guangdong and Jiangxi. The unique life experience makes Hakka people form the survival needs of national unity and common defense against the enemy, and produces the tradition of respecting ancestors and celebrating the "Heavenly Ding" with lanterns. However, "hanging lights" has nothing to do with girls!

When hanging lanterns, they should be hung on the beams of the ancestral home of the family and the church of their own home to celebrate their contribution, so they are called "hanging lanterns" or "carrying lanterns" as the name suggests. After hanging the lights, the new couple's name can be officially recorded in the family tree.

I think the custom of hanging lanterns is a solidification of blood consciousness. The annual custom of hanging lanterns pursues endless life, which is an ode to life, a celebration of the continuation of life, a gratitude for life, a reverence for life and a blessing for a better life.

How to "hang the lights"?

1. Preparation: The discussion group in the village will discuss the agenda of hanging lanterns, do a good job of division of labor, and select the person in charge of the ceremony. The village's gongs, drums and lion dance teams have to rehearse in advance, and people who hang lanterns have prepared three sacrifices, drinks, firecrackers and incense sticks in advance to worship their ancestors, especially lanterns.

2. Sacrificing ancestors and raising lanterns: On the morning of the same day, all the newly added households in the village gathered in the ancestral hall to offer drinks and gifts to the three animals. Under the auspices of the family elders, they burned incense and lit candles together to worship their ancestors, and put lanterns on the Ding in their ancestral home. The newcomer is supported by the elders and bows to the ancestral tablets.

Accompanied by gongs, drums, lion dances and firecrackers, it was very lively. When lanterns are placed in ancestral houses, they should also be presented to ancestors when they return to their own homes. In some areas, only one lantern is placed. The lighting process sometimes lasts until the afternoon.

Celebration: In the evening, all the people hanging lanterns put down the banquet, and the Tian Ding family, friends and relatives from all directions came to congratulate each other, help each other and express their best wishes to the Tian Ding family. There will also be boxing guessing, fireworks, lion dance and other programs during the dinner.

Making "hanging lanterns" has auspicious and beautiful meanings. "Hanging lanterns", with fine workmanship, is a practical handicraft that appeals to both refined and popular tastes, and is also a necessary item for ordinary people to hold happy events in the New Year. Today, let's experience the traditional skills of making lanterns.

The custom of "hanging lanterns" in the new era should also keep pace with the times. With the progress and development of human society and the continuous improvement of civilization, equality between men and women has long been realized in most parts of the world. Women play an important role as much as or even more than men in the country, society and family. Therefore, the concept of male superiority and female inferiority has long been thrown into the paper pile of history.

Today, the man is Ding and the daughter is Ding; Men and women are born for themselves and should be treated equally. Therefore, the custom of lighting should be adjusted accordingly, and we should not fall into the stereotype of men and women. Equality between men and women is only formal equality. Real equality should start with the concept of fertility, and then treat education equally. The concept of birth equality is also helpful to improve or eliminate some bad social phenomena brought about by the one-sided pursuit of boys in society.

It is reported that some Hakka areas have achieved equality between men and women, and daughters' names can also be recorded in genealogy, which should be a good phenomenon of social civilization and progress.

Why do you want to hang lights 3 "drinking" to celebrate the birth of a boy?

"Drinking Lantern Wine" is a wedding banquet to celebrate the birth of a boy. It originated in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and now Shunde is the best preserved.

"Light" and "Ding" are homophonic, and turning on the light and hanging the light means carrying on the family line. In the past year, Shunde families with more people will hold a ceremony of "adding lights".

The baby's father will buy an octagonal paper lamp and hang it in the middle of the ancestral temple or temple in the village. In order to pray for children to grow up quickly, please bless their ancestors.

On the sixth day of the first month, lanterns are hung, one at home, one at the "Shegong" (Land Temple) and one at the General Ancestral Hall, the Second Ancestral Hall (Sub-Ancestral Hall) and the Third Ancestral Hall (Sub-Ancestral Hall). As soon as the light is hung, it means that the new person has joined the family.

Lantern paper is painted with flowers and red, with auspicious patterns of color paper-cut. There is a small dish filled with peanut oil hanging inside, which lights up all day, symbolizing the vitality of lanterns.

Pick up the glass and chat happily-the combination of friends.

In the past, on the eleventh day of the first month, lanterns and wine were put on, and Tianding's family took out ginger and eggs to worship Taigong, while Taigong paid for all the men in later generations to go to a feast, divide pork, ginger and eggs, and presented a big "profit market" (red envelope) to the couple to express their congratulations.

In Shunde, the time of each village is different, usually from the sixth day of the Lunar New Year to the Lantern Festival. A few days ago, the village will first issue a notice calling on villagers to buy tickets and reserve seats to participate in the Lantern Festival.

Each wine is about 400 yuan.

On the night of the Lantern Festival, many villages and ancestral halls in Shunde will be crowded and bustling, and some villages have thousands of people. Now, "drinking lanterns and wine" has become the biggest collective activity in some villages in Shunde.

More than 530 sets of lantern festivals photographed by Ma Zhongshi Ping in Rong Gui have been set up, with 4,000 to 5,000 participants.

At seven o'clock in the evening, with the crackling firecrackers, dozens of chefs and aunts put the first dish of the Lantern Festival on various stages, and the "Drinking Lantern Wine" activity officially began.

Friends and relatives at the banquet gathered together and enjoyed themselves.

Although there is nothing precious at the banquet, the style and naming of the dishes highlight the theme of adding happiness. Rich Luohanzhai, Rich Flower Drum City and Rich Nuts are full of good wishes for life.

Ma Zhongshi Lantern Festival menu

Take a banquet for more than 2000 people as an example. It took two days to prepare the ingredients for the 13 course, and 400 kilograms of roast pork, 203 osmanthus fish, 2 10 chickens, 220 kilograms of ribs, 300 kilograms of rice, more than 2,000 barbecued buns and hundreds of kilograms of vegetables were purchased.

So this occasion is a good opportunity for Shunde chefs to show their talents. In order to make everyone happy, famous chefs in Shunde are often invited to make banquets.

"competing for lights", seeking meaning.

As the highlight, there is also a "Lantern Throwing" activity during the "Drinking Lantern Wine", that is, lanterns are made with good intentions such as "Prosperous business", "Adding wealth", "Smooth sailing" and "Feng Shui", and then the villagers bid.

Every time a lamp is thrown, it starts with firecrackers and ends with firecrackers. The host walked in the middle of the banquet with a microphone and called on everyone to bid for the lights.

Generally, the starting price of a lamp is 3888 yuan, while those who cast the lamp cast lucky numbers such as 6888 yuan, 8888 yuan, 12888 or 13888.

The first light is often the most competitive, and everyone wants to compete for the opportunity of "leading". Moreover, goodwill such as prosperous business, strong financial resources and making a fortune is also the object that people chase, and they often bid the highest.

In recent years, the life of Shunde citizens is booming, and the folk activities of "drinking lanterns and wine" are becoming more and more prosperous, and more and more people are bidding for lanterns. Wealthy bidders not only want to make a good start, but also want to take this opportunity to thank the villagers and repay the society.