Li Yanlin.
Spring Festival is the most important traditional festival of the Chinese, and it is also a concentrated display of rural customs and customs. Buy New Year's goods, steam rice cakes, sacrifice ancestors, set off firecrackers, eat dumplings, and visit relatives ......It's all interesting. Among them, sticking Spring Festival couplets is the highlight. Every Spring Festival, whether in the city or in the countryside, every household must select Spring Festival couplets to be pasted on the door. The red Spring Festival couplets are filled with the joy and joy of the festival, express people's good wishes, and contain unique cultural connotations.
For as long as I can remember, every household in my hometown of Yimeng Mountain has regarded the Spring Festival couplets as a major event, and they are very particular about the beauty and ritual of the Spring Festival couplets. Before the Spring Festival, each family went to the commune supply and marketing cooperatives or the brigade store to buy a few pieces of red paper, and asked the cultural people in the village to help write Spring Festival couplets. When I was a child, I first helped my father write and paste Spring Festival couplets on paper, and since I was in junior high school, my family's Spring Festival couplets have been independently responsible for buying paper, writing and posting.
The year 1981 was the first bumper harvest year after the implementation of the household contract responsibility system in our village. Before the Spring Festival, my father made an exception and bought back five pieces of red paper and two bottles of ink. My father said: "This year's New Year is good, the pair is written generously, let's have a prosperous New Year!" ”
On Chinese New Year's Eve, my mother prepared half a pot of paste for me with a charcoal stove. I split a big red piece of paper into two as the Spring Festival couplets at the door of my house. The content of the Spring Festival couplets revolves around "welcoming the new year" and "celebrating the harvest year". At home, he posted "good health" on his grandfather's kang head, "five grains and abundant harvest" on the wheat bowl, "six animals are prosperous" on the livestock circle, and "eight immortals crossing the sea" on the water tank. I also wrote the word "unitary", which is homophonic "have", into a smiley face and pasted it on farm tools, grinding plates, chicken coops and other places. The courtyard was posted red, full of New Year's flavor.
Later, I went back to my hometown for many years to write Spring Festival couplets for my uncle and uncle. Prepare a variety of couplets, ink, and brushes of varying thicknesses at home. After laying out the red paper, I first asked the other party about the major events in his heart, such as a good grain harvest, marrying a daughter-in-law, adding a baby, a child becoming a soldier or being admitted to a university, and then writing along this thought, going straight to the joy in my heart. Everyone clapped their hands and said, "Good, good!" That's what it means! ”
The content of the Spring Festival couplets is also constantly changing with the times, all of which reflect the atmosphere of the times. In addition to the upper link, the lower link, and the horizontal batch, there is also the word "Fu". The word "Fu" is sticked, which means "opening the door to welcome blessing"; The word "Fu" is pasted upside down, and the homonym means "Fu".
Chinese New Year's Eve sticking the Spring Festival is a major event for every household in the Yimeng Mountain District. Each family first tore up the old Spring Festival couplets, then smeared them with paste, and after drawing the written Spring Festival couplets in a good position, they were carefully pasted on the door from top to bottom. The children followed behind the adults, taking the Spring Festival couplets, moving stools, and handing paste, and they were very busy. Most people put the Spring Festival early to take the meaning of "early hair", happily waiting for the sound of firecrackers to welcome the New Year and the dumplings on Chinese New Year's Eve.
Nowadays, the living conditions are getting better and better, and the Spring Festival couplets are becoming more and more exquisite and exquisite. Most of the current Spring Festival couplets are machine-printed, the font is beautiful, not only the red paper and black characters, but also the red paper gold characters, some of the words are convex, which is really eye-catching. Paste couplets are no longer paste, but glue, scotch tape or double-sided tape. Although more and more people live in cities and live in buildings, people have not lost the traditional custom of sticking Spring Festival couplets for the New Year.
Last year, my wife and I went to our son's house for the Spring Festival. When driving to the door of his house, his granddaughter was holding the red Spring Festival couplets purchased online, asking this and that, the son was holding the Spring Festival couplets and pasting them on the door, and the daughter-in-law was standing in the distance to observe the direction. After a while, the brand-new red Spring Festival couplets were pasted, and the rich atmosphere of the New Year came to the face. We hurriedly stood in front of the big red Spring Festival couplets and took a family photo, storing this beauty in our memories forever.
People** 2024-02-16 08 edition).