The story of grandpa and couplets

Mondo Culture Updated on 2024-02-12

Before his grandfather's death, the family never bought couplets, because his grandfather had the "willow style" calligraphy of the child's skill, and he bought red paper in advance every year to write it himself.

The twenty-eighth day of the lunar month is the day to write couplets every year. Grandpa prepared pen, ink, paper, and inkstone in advance, and began to write solemnly. Most of the words in the couplets are related to "blessing", "longevity", "lu" and "wealth".

Shanglian: auspicious and full of blessings.

Downlink: Fortune is the head of Na Qianxiang.

Horizontal batch: auspicious blessing.

Some couplets correspond to the development of the times, singing praises of new fashions, and grandpa will go to sell couplets there to "collect style" for reference. There are also some that my grandfather created himself, after all, my grandfather had studied in a private school, and his basic skills were solid, and he also published a "tofu block article" in the newspaper as an adult. It's still handy to deal with a "right pair".

The drafts were typed in advance, arranged in the form of couplets "vertically", with horizontal batches in the center. After studying the ink, when writing with a pen, no matter how many people in the family, tacitly "silent mode" throughout the whole process, this is the rule that grandpa has cultivated over the years. It gives the couplet a solemn sense of ceremony.

All the couplets were written, and Grandpa spoke first, and the others breathed a sigh of relief and began to communicate in low voices.

In the past, when I was in my hometown, I owed others no money to pay back, and I dared to post couplets on the afternoon of the thirtieth day of the Chinese New Year's Eve, for fear that the creditors would come to collect debts and tear up the couplets. Alas, people came to the door, couldn't pay for it, and said some unpleasant things, we didn't dare to talk back, this face, there is no place to put it, it was my mother who came forward to ask for leniency ......

This story, grandpa will tell it once a year when he writes couplets, some people, such as me, have heard it at least a dozen times, but grandpa still tells it every year, or from the beginning, every detail is the same, and the sons should understand it together, without interrupting, and listen patiently.

When I was younger, I didn't understand my grandfather's nagging clichés, nor did I understand the polite response of my uncles and uncles, and in my opinion, my grandfather might have been old and confused.

It was the twenty-eighth day of the lunar month of another year, and when I recalled this incident, I suddenly understood my grandfather's behavior. First, as the only male in the family, he failed to earn enough money to support the family, which humiliated the family and embarrassed his mother. Second, the grandfather asked the younger generations to remember the suffering of the family and not let the tragedy happen again.

Gone are the days of listening to the elders of the family, and the teachings about them always come to mind on specific days, which are the family heirlooms left by the elders, passed down from generation to generation.

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