In the old society, Dongtai was known as the "little shanghai" in northern Jiangsu, with a vast territory and a large population. At the end of Qing Dynasty, there were ten townships in the county with a population of 6.5438+0.2 million. After the Revolution of 1911 and before the Northern Expedition, Dongtai City gathered almost all the merchants in the surrounding provinces and cities: rice merchants in Hunan, wood merchants in Hubei, ceramics merchants in Jiangxi, tea merchants in Anhui and "Chaofeng" (brokers of pawn shops), silk merchants and salt merchants in Yangzhou, oil and hemp merchants and sauce and vinegar merchants in Zhenjiang. Dongtai county, which was founded in the thirty-third year of Qianlong, is still long overdue. It has always refused to accept foreign economy and culture. The influx of diversified economy has attracted multiculturalism to take root here. After 100 years of selective absorption, the customs and cultural characteristics of Dongtai area have gradually formed. Buying and offering sacrifices to new year's goods is a top priority for Dongtai people. Large families and small families buy new year's goods, and buying more or less depends on the degree of surplus money on hand. Temple Street, Dinggong Bridge, Guanqiaokou to Youfangtou, Lujiazui, Xiaba and Beiguanqiaokou, when the twelfth lunar month arrives, the boats of the villagers who go into the city to buy new year's goods will be full; "Everyone sleeps by the river" in front of and behind the store, which is similar to the shops in towns in southern Jiangsu, and provides services for this city that only relies on commercial circulation to accumulate funds. Farmers unload the cotton and grain from "help boats" (covered boats, which are different from those from Zhejiang) and replace them with foreign goods from "Lu Chen" and "Cotton" to join the team buying new year's goods. Before the Anti-Japanese War, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism flourished in Dongtai County. There are more than 800 temples and palaces, thousands of monks, tens of thousands of good men and women, sacrifices for the Spring Festival, and dried fruits for fasting and chanting Buddha. The expenses in mountain products are countless. There are dozens of firms and shops dealing in goods from the South and the North in Dongtai. During Tongzhi and Guangxu years, Caiyi Street and Temple Street successively opened old brands of goods from the South and the North, such as Wu, Rongji, Liu Wanshun and so on. In Samadhi Temple, Dasheng Temple, Taishan Temple and other major jungles, the purchase of candles during the Spring Festival alone reached several hundred kilograms. The supply of finished candles in Liang Yuanchang candle workshop under Magong Bridge is in short supply, so we have to provide blank candle cores for major firms to process themselves. "Zhou Zhenxin" paint shop also undertook the business of carving and painting craft candles and dragon and phoenix festive candles for Liang Yuanchang candle workshop. For a time, incense shops also flourished because of the large demand of temple pilgrims. The "Liu Taisheng" incense shop in Temple Street and the "Kekaitai" incense shop by the Haihe River show a busy scene. The most famous incense shop with a certain scale of operation is "Yao Xinhe". Many people buy incense burners and candlesticks during the Spring Festival, which also leads to more coppersmith and blacksmith shops in Dongtai, and more people eat their meals. The author has a pair of double happiness candlesticks with the models of "Dahua" and "Dongtai Yongmaolong", which clearly confirms this historical reality. In Dongtai, where Buddhism thrives, even very poor families will buy a pair of clay incense burners and tile candlesticks produced by Xixi earth kiln, praying for happiness in the new year. Buying lanterns, sending candy, playing flagpoles, fragrant old rice, door gods and happy money are another beautiful scenery of old Dongtai City. The sky lantern is made of oil paper dyed deep red, and the word "sky lantern" is printed on it with gold paper. An eight-centimeter-long red "candle worship" is inserted in a round ceramic lamp holder and lit night after night from New Year's Eve to the end of the lunar calendar. The number of "sky lanterns" hanging under the eaves of rooms is also stipulated. Besides the three lanterns of "Heaven, Earth and Man", the number of boys in this family is the number of lanterns in this family. "Bucket flagpole ... old rice flower ...", "Give me some kitchen candy, um, buy two kitchen books ..." After the twelfth lunar month, songs came and went in the city. Vendors who sell this kind of sacrifice and pray for the New Year are all poor people in the bottom social life of some towns. They exchanged the "new year's market" for a little money for living. There is nothing special about all kinds of money in Dongtai Street, but the prints printed by Gongfusheng Paper Workshop enjoy a high reputation and are exported to Gaoyou, Baoying, Xinghua, Taizhou He Lixia and other places. Most of the contents are historical stories such as "Wang Wen's visit to the sages" and "Dragon and Phoenix are auspicious", as well as auspicious patterns such as "More than every year" and "Peace through the years". Color printing is bright and dazzling. The Bodhisattva axe hanging in the center of the room is different from other places: there is more kindness and less majesty between the door gods painted by Dongtai people and Qin's forehead, while the Guanyin statue on the Bodhisattva axe is particularly kind and full of fireworks, which may be related to Dongtai's concept of "harmony and wealth"! Dongtai city is rich in cakes and sweets that are sacrificed to the gods during the Spring Festival. There are more than a dozen "tea shops" (formerly known as pastry and candy shops) in Qianbei Street, and there are even stores in humble places, such as Wuweizhai, Five Blessingg, Guoxiangzhai, Delicious and He Wanxing. There are three most famous restaurants, which specialize in halal vegetarian restaurants such as Beijing-style cakes, fancy cakes and hemp cutting. In these stores, chrysanthemum cakes, dates, bergamot, sugar, pods, root powder, prickly heat, rock sugar cakes and all kinds of fruits are piled up in the store, and the fragrance is overflowing. At this time, Dongtai City, Qilichang Street, has a stronger annual flavor. The packaging of cakes and tea in these tea shops is also very economical. They are all baskets made of local firewood or packed in earthen paper bags, which are both beautiful and economical. These exquisite candies and cakes for praying for blessings were later brought to Shanghai by Zhen Chan, the abbot of Shanghai Jade Buddha Temple (Dongtai people), and can still be tasted in the Jade Buddha Temple. After the 21st day of the twelfth lunar month, it has become a custom for every household to buy silver carp for the New Year. Everyone will buy two silver carp, and elegant people also like to buy two blood-red silver carp (commonly known as "blood silver carp" in Dongtai) to hang under the eaves. It was cooked on New Year's Eve and put on the table in the main room for more than a year. Praying for happiness is an important part of Dongtai people's New Year custom. The custom of "sending stoves" in Dongtai includes the 23rd and 24th of the twelfth lunar month, and there is no uniform regulation. In addition to inviting "Zao Ye", "Ma Zao" and "Shu Zao", the items offered for offering sacrifices to stoves in Dongtai should be placed on the stoves to show sincerity to Zao Ye. "Send stove candy", tofu, water bamboo, tea and japonica rice are put in a disc, which means to cover Master Zao's mouth with "send stove candy". Tofu, homophonic for "stealing money" and "mowing grass", is cut and placed neatly on a plate for the "kitchen horse" in the sky to enjoy. Dongtai people are really thoughtful in preparing the chef. After lunch on New Year's Eve, the Spring Festival etiquette of "pretending to be old rice" was staged at the same time in large and small homes in Dongtai City. The hostess put the pre-steamed glutinous rice into two "old rice bowls" of roughly the same size, piled it into steamed bread and smoothed it with her hands. At first, an "old rice cake" about 15×3.5 cm was stuck in the center of the rice, steamed, and pasted on the rice noodles, with a red edge on a white background and the red word "Fushou". The length of the flagpole bucket depends on the indoor height of the master hall. It is an important object for Dongtai people to pray for New Year greetings. It's about one and a half meters long. It is made of thick reeds, wrapped in gold and silver colored paper, and decorated with miniature immortals of various colors such as happiness, wealth, longevity, wealth and happiness from top to bottom. The four layers of "Eight Immortals" stand against the auspicious clouds of Ganoderma lucidum. "Chen" is about half a meter high, and it is decorated with miniature "Xi Qian" cut with colored paper. The top of "Xi Qian" and the pine and cypress branches inserted behind "Chen" are all buckled with colorful ginkgo and red dates. Two pots of rice noodles in Fan Chen are embedded with five-color dried fruits sold in southern small commodity stores: red dates, black dates, longan, lychee and lychee. The old rice basin is placed on the right side of the incense table, and the elegant big family rice basin is placed on the carved basin frame of rosewood or rosewood to show caution. The "old rice basin" is also very delicate, with specially cast bronze (copper-tin alloy) or copper utensils, on which are cast the three characters "cornucopia"; The three generations of Qing Dynasty had special "old rice bowls" of blue and white and pastel, and they were also replaced by special red "old rice bowls" or "broken porcelain" bowls opened by Geyao during Tongzhi and Guangxu periods. As long as there is still a mouthful of rice to eat, small families will "pretend to be old rice", but the utensils for holding rice are not so particular. In order to look forward to the well-being in the coming year, "Bao Laomi" has become the spiritual sustenance for Dongtai people to pursue future happiness. "Thanking God", "Resignation" and "Keeping the Year" are important ceremonies of Dongtai people's Chinese New Year custom. From the twentieth day of the twelfth lunar month, Dongtai people habitually entered the countdown stage of "counting nights". Everyone opened their mouths and said "Twenty nights today", which means the twentieth day of the twelfth lunar month. As soon as the "Cooking Day" on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month is over, it will enter the substantive Chinese New Year stage. First, people, big or small, are not allowed to swear, let alone say things that are contrary to "good luck". On 25th and 26th, they will "dust off", that is, clean indoors and outdoors to prepare for offering sacrifices to the gods. "Thank God" is the first ceremony. "Thank God" is to offer pig's head, carp, rooster ("three sacrifices") and drinks to the God of heaven and earth to thank God for his gift and make the whole family safe every year; Then everyone in the family eats two poached eggs, which means "holding gold ingots". Burning "New Year's Paper" on the 28th of the twelfth lunar month means offering sacrifices to ancestors and praying for them to bless the coming year. Don't forget the gratitude of your ancestors, and pursue the future with caution. New Year's Eve is the most solemn and sacred moment of Dongtai people's year: the streets and alleys are silent, and few people walk in the streets except pedestrians who hurry home; The shop has been "closed" on the couch (that is, on the door panel), and every household is busy putting up couplets and decals to collect money; The land temples in the streets are busy, and the bright red sky lanterns are hung up early. Housewives went out of their homes one after another, burning incense on the land temple with lanterns, praying for the land god to bless the family's peace in the coming year. Then they heard the sound of closing the door and locking it, and from time to time there was the sound of bellman knocking on the bamboo tube in the street. From the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month to the 2nd of February next year, Dongtai City has always had the "convention" of "patrolling the streets". There is no fixed time to eat New Year's Eve in Dongtai, only whether the whole family is there. Shopkeepers wait until all the people who went out to collect accounts come back, and wine becomes a symbol of harmony, peace, reunion and perfection. After eating the birthday wine, the male host put a bowl of water and cakes in the yard, burned a pot of incense, and invited the kitchen god to come down. "The lower bound is safe." First, the pine branches and charcoal in the "king basin" (that is, the cast iron brazier) have already burned out, and the room is suddenly warm and full of pine branches and Qing Xiang. The portraits of "Tianguan" painted by local painters Zhou and Zhang Xiaozhai are hung in the hall of a big family, praying for "God bless the people". On the second truss of the beam in front of the incense table, there is a big red "flower" nearly three feet high (five or six wide rows next to the wide flower), while in a small family, Guanyin and Bodhisattva axe are hung, hoping that Bodhisattva will bless the family. Before the incense table, in addition to cakes, dried fruits and old rice bowls, there were three kinds of flower sacrifices, which were inserted in bottles and jars, namely Zizhu, Chimonanthus praecox and Narcissus. At this time, the hostess is also busy: cooking red dates and making dumplings, while the male host places offerings in the hall and lights incense sticks and paper horses. There are eight kinds of dried fruit cakes offering sacrifices to the gods: red dates, chestnuts, lychees, longan, cloud cakes, sesame seeds, peach cakes and snow dates. At the same time, the "nine-corner box" is also full of cakes for guests. In the past, during the Spring Festival in Dongtai, it was popular to use "red offerings" for family reunion and tea. The big family and the small family basically take out the red sacrifice bowl and the cover bowl and put them on the Eight Immortals table in the hall, and put a little brown sugar in the bowl for later use. The lucky money prepared by the elders for the younger generation is also neatly arranged on the table, and there are several cloud cakes sealed with red paper on the envelope of the lucky money. At midnight, firecrackers exploded in the yard, red candles burned high in the hall and cigarettes filled the air. All the families kowtow in turn in front of the tablets or portraits of the ancestors of the gods, and then congratulate the arrival of the New Year. Young people must eat "open cakes" first, which means that they will be promoted and improved within one year, and then they will congratulate their elders on the New Year, and their elders will also give them lucky money. In the old society, poor people who had worked hard for a year and had no life tried their best to clean their homes and prepare a simple New Year's Eve dinner. In the old Dongtai New Year, there was such a bitter folk song: "Twenty-eight, thinking; Twenty-nine, yes; Thirty nights, not at home; On New Year's Day, the archway was handed over. " There is a similar record in Lu and Cai Yun's Wu Ge: "Heaven and earth can avoid debts, and they owe debts for one night a year. The shop door is closed to money, and I still have lanterns to go once. " This is a true portrayal of the people at the bottom of society. In fact, the Spring Festival in the past was just synonymous with the rich showing off their wealth, and the poor were far from celebrating and being happy. The reality of debt collection forces them to "collect the year". It is an old custom in Dongtai that you are not allowed to sleep late on the first day of the new year. Probably because Dongtai is a commercial circulation city and businessmen are diligent, people in Dongtai get up in less than a few hours' sleep. The family sat around the square table and started the first activity of the New Year-"New Year Morning Tea". In the old days, "three teas" were eaten, and the tableware was red covered bowls, red painted bowls and red painted chopsticks. The first tea: brown sugar boiled water tea, which means rich and sweet. Two-way tea: jujube tea, that is, "happy jujube" tea, opens the door to see the joy, and the joy is added. Three teas: Tangyuan tea, solid jiaozi without stuffing, it's true, everything is perfect. After breakfast, the main members of the family, the host and hostess, don't go out this day, and the children are free to go out to "pay New Year's greetings" and ask for "Xi money" to play in the city; A few old people, lay people and Buddhists gathered outside the gates of Samadhi Temple, Dashengtang Temple and Taishan Temple as early as childhood, waiting for "burning incense".