(with photos)

Shu Yi

There is so much more to the festivities of the Beijingers,

that the Spring Festival alone would be enough to write a book.

Think about it, close to the Spring Festival that one more

week, from the waxing moon twenty-three sacrifices Zao Wang Wang

started, it is a day by day action, authentic

unified action, the whole city, the first day

together with the cleaning, the second day together with the steamed

steamed bread, the third day together with the killing of chickens and slaughtering of ducks,

how much grandeur and so on. And so on and so forth, what grandeur and fun.

This prelude to the New Year's Eve, from the eighth day of the month of Lunar New Year, all with cultural colors, to put it mildly

loosely, with a great deal of playfulness.

La Bao this day, to cook porridge to drink porridge, called La Bao porridge. Originally, the end of all crops

are harvested, as if to deliberately exhibit the colorful harvest throughout the year, they invented

such a Lahai congee. Into the porridge put rice, millet, rice, barley,

sorghum rice, corn, a variety of beans, including red beans, green beans, soybeans, beans, kidney beans,

various nuts, walnuts, chestnuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, melon seeds, peanuts, as well as

dried grapes, cinnamon, red dates, a variety of preserved fruits. Such a pot of congee, but also! Fragrant

ah, colorful, fun, smell and look mouth-watering. Laha congee is a family

home to simmer, a simmering overnight, the whole family to help peel, including peanut

skin and that troublesome walnut skin. The children eat while peeling, eat more peeling less,

the fun is endless. The congee is boiled, according to the rules of the elderly, to be given to friends, between

or there is a competition to show the meaning of. In fact, the original Buddhist early congee porridge for Buddha's

rules, with a cauldron boil, loaded with several stones of rice, for the Buddha after the alms to the poor near and far. The emperor

The emperor also gave congee to the custom of the hundred officials. The people, more joyful, a year of hard work

After a celebration of the harvest cauldron boiled, not happy, quite good.

The most dramatic to be counted twenty-three sacrificial stove. In the old days, every family worshiped an

old god, he was called Zao Wang Wang, this male will rise to the sky on the 23rd of Lunar New Year every year, to the God

report to the good and bad of the earth during the year. So, every family buys some maltose, with sugar to the old

god immortal mouth paste, the best "bribe" thing, so that he went to heaven only say good things not

say bad things, report good news and not bad news. This is almost a joke of the rituals of the gods, families are

to operate in a very serious attitude, more humane, the children's mouths are

is the real home of the sugar melons on the table.

There are countless craftsmen, vendors and entertainers, busy with the Spring Festival as if

they were an integral part of the festival. There are those who sell calendars, New Year's paintings, pom-poms, firecrackers, fireworks, Zao Wang, the God of Wealth, the God of Door

masters, the Hanging Thousand, the Honey Offerings, the Miscellaneous, the Lanterns, the Poofs and Puffs

, the Firecrackers, the Ice Candy Gourds, the Shanlihong Strings, and the Windmills.

People perform in dry boats, stilt walkers, shuttlecocks, dragon lanterns, lions, Chinese

streamers, monks with big heads, rice-planting songs, kung fu, guandan wrestling, and drumming.

The Spring Festival family to do the New Year's dishes, Beijing to do mustard pier child, bean child sauce, small

crispy fish, rice flour meat, chicken meat as the most common.

Three foods are eaten between the Spring Festival and the Shangyuan Festival: dumplings on New Year's Eve, spring cakes on the first day of the spring, and the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month.

Spring cake is the most delicious, branding small flour cake or steamed small flour cake can be, thin, also known as thin

cake, cut green onion shredded dipped in sweet noodle sauce, fried spinach vermicelli, fried yellow flowers and fungus, fried bean sprouts and garlic,

Spread egg shredded, cut the meat into the sauce into a shredded, cut the belly into a shredded. Food kind of all clip a little,

Put on the cake together, rolled and eat, the sudden strange effect, its freshness, its beauty, the sky

No second homemade food can exceed it, can be called the king of food.

The Spring Festival men and women, old and young are resting, together with the holiday, but the first five are not allowed to move the knife and

cut, not allowed to pour the soil, in order to let the women who have been tired for a year to completely rest a few days,

How humane!

There are many places to go in the Spring Festival, women eat, see lanterns, watch fireworks, can

To the collective group tour, walking called walk hundred diseases, called walk bridge, take the meaning of the degree of bad luck; competition

Phase to go to the hole in the door to touch the door nails, door nails have the image of the women's breasts, touched the door nails

It is appropriate to give birth to a big fat boy. During the day, people could go to Liulichang to catch the factory dean. You can ride a donkey to

Baiyunguan or Dazhong Temple to catch the temple fair. You can go to Yonghegong Palace to watch ghost fighting. Walking tired,

Can wrestle a heart beauty carrot to eat, called the bite of spring, take the meaning of spring sleepy.

A

Movement, a foot and a hand, all so have to say, love, fun, beauty

Collected among them.

(This article is the foreword of "Old Beijing City Style Painting", which is abridged by this newspaper.)

Figure: Old Beijingers celebrate New Year's Eve on the 30th night of the Lunar New Year by buying a lamp for their children,

lighting candles and wandering around in and out of the courtyard. As the saying goes, "light up the lamps, Wang Huo, happy children".

Sheng Xisan painting