Nanxun’s unique customs
Nanxun’s unique custom
1. Wrapping rice dumplings
Before Qingming Festival, every family washes rice and wraps rice dumplings. Clean the glutinous rice and use Ruo leaves to wrap the rice dumplings into triangular, four-corner and pointed shapes, including date rice dumplings (add red dates or candied dates), bean paste rice dumplings, meat rice dumplings, etc. Four or five rice dumplings are put into skewers and boiled in a large pot over high heat. Add water at any time. When the rice dumplings are cooked, simmer overnight, drain and hang on a bamboo pole or rope. When traveling to Hanshan during the Qingming Festival, I would bring a few strings of rice dumplings with me; after the Qingming Festival, I would bring rice dumplings by the side of the fields to make "Di San Feed (small snacks)"; and I would entertain guests to eat rice dumplings. Local proverbs include: "In the first month, shuttlecocks are played, in February, kites are flown, and in March, rice is washed and rice dumplings are wrapped."
2. Making Qingming Yuanzi
The so-called Qingming Yuanzi is made from pairs of japonica and glutinous rice flour, one is green and the other is white. Qingyuanzi is made from rice flour, cooked with pumpkin vine green leaves soaked in quicklime powder. Qingming dumplings are made into a cocoon shape without fillings, so they are also called cocoon dumplings. In the village in the south of this town (at the border with Tongxiang), Qingming dumplings are made with two pointed ends. There is a saying in the countryside: "Qingming dumplings are pointed at both ends, and you will go crazy if you eat them." It means that Qingming is in the third month of spring, when everything is full of vitality, and people are full of vigor. It specifically refers to the activities of going to Hanshan to roll silkworm flowers, punching, and throwing They ride on white boats, hold strong rocks (poles), and make a lot of noise, up and down the mountain, regardless of men, women, old or young. Everyone was ecstatic and seemed crazy.
Qingming Yuanzi is used as the zodiac sign. When farmers make Qingming dumplings, they use green and white dough to shape the twelve zodiac signs. For cyan dragons, monkeys, chickens, white sheep, rabbits, spotted cows, pigs, dogs, etc., use half an adzuki bean or wild black bean (commonly known as sheep-eye black bean) to make animal eyes, steam them and let them dry. Remove from steamer rack. When making animals, I also made a few cats. Although the cat does not belong to the zodiac, the silkworm cat is the mascot of the farm; in addition, we will make a "cocoon mountain". Put these together with Qingming dumplings into a steamer or a plate to pray to the God of Wealth and the Five Saints of Silkworm Flowers, praying for twenty-four cents of silkworm flowers. According to custom, the Qingming zodiac signs and rice cakes (already dried) placed on Zaoshan are fried in oil for children to eat at the beginning of summer, which means they will not suffer from summer sickness after eating them.
3. Sweet wheat cakes
Sweet wheat cakes are a specialty of Lianshi. People in Lianshi have the custom of eating sweet wheat cakes during Qingming Festival and Beginning of Summer. Use white Pozi grass or Threadweed grass (the leaves of these two grasses have spongy velvet when they are torn), cook the soup and add rice noodles (half and half Japonica rice and glutinous rice), knead it repeatedly, and knead it into a lump. Steam the pot thoroughly, and after it cools down, slowly add an appropriate amount of malted wheat flour (also known as sweet wheat flour), but not too much. Too much sweet wheat will make the dough mushy and sticky, making it difficult to make cakes. When kneading the cooked sweet wheat dough, it should not be too cold, otherwise the kneading will be uneven and hard lumps will form in the cake. After making it into a round cake, sprinkle some sesame seeds and use oil to simmer the cake repeatedly in the simmering pan until it becomes bright yellow. You can add less sugar water when simmering the cake to make it taste sweeter. Add walnuts, bean paste or black sesame filling to the cake for a better taste. Sweet wheat cake is a major local specialty food. Now from the Qingming Festival to the Beginning of Summer, there are several stalls on the street that use tricycles to sell rice cakes while making them. Guests from Huzhou, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai and other places also like to come to Lianshi to try sweet wheat cakes during the Qingming Festival, or bring them with them. Give some to relatives and friends.
Four. Silkworm Rolling
Visiting Hanshan during the Qingming Festival is an annual event for the people in the town. Men, women, old and young, bring rice dumplings or take a boat or walk to Hanshan Mountain. Hanshan Pond is full of passenger and farm boats, and the white boats in Tang Harbor come and go like flying
Boxing boats flutter colorful flags, beat gongs and drums, open their fists and dance halberds; The crowds on the mountain and down the mountain were extremely noisy. The cries of businessmen come and go: those selling sugar cane, those selling wontons, those selling pear paste sugar, those selling candied haws, those selling spicy dried tofu; there are also jugglers, those pushing foreign boards, those playing monkeys, and those selling foreign egg follicles. , whistles, toy knives and guns, it’s dazzling.
People’s favorite are colorful silkworm flowers tied with paper and silk. They sell a bunch to take home and put in a silkworm plaque to pray for twenty-four cents of silkworm flowers; young women buy one and insert it in their hair. , a young man buys one and wears it on the brim of his hat.
Men and women of faith burn incense and chant Buddha's name in the temple and in front of the pagoda to bless themselves and bring peace. Worship the "Five Saints of Silkworm Flowers" to pray for a good harvest of silkworm cocoons.
In the old days, when silkworm flowers were rolled, it was said that there was a bad custom of "touching the silkworm flower grandma". In the process of competition between men and women, touching women's breasts is allowed. It is said that it means "touching the hair, the more you touch it, the more it grows" (silkworm flower hair). It became popular before and after the Revolution of 1911, but gradually declined after the Anti-Japanese War ("Huzhou Style") .
Five Silkworm Flower Festival
The Huzhou Hanshan Silkworm Flower Festival, based on the silkworm customs of the silkworm hometown, was officially founded in 1993 and integrates ancient times and modern times. The combination of folk customs and tourism appreciation, continuous innovation, innovation and creativity, promote the folk culture of South Taihu Lake, forming a dazzling and splendid folk customs landscape. Whenever the Silkworm Flower Festival opens, it attracts many guests from all over the country and at home and abroad to visit the lake. Thirty to fifty thousand tourists gather in Hanshan, and local leaders preside over the opening ceremony. During this period, in addition to the local customary activities such as wearing silkworm flowers, rolling silkworm flowers, worshiping the silkworm flower queen, and eating silkworm flower rice, the organizers of the Silkworm Flower Festival have integrated them into modern unified activities. Among them, an aircraft is used to fly back and forth over Hanshan Mountain, scattering more than ten thousand silkworm flowers slowly flying in the air, and landing on the heads of lucky tourists. Hundreds of Silkworm Queens were organized to worship the Silkworm God in the form of singing and dancing, and the "Golden Silkworm Flower Girl" was selected; the legendary Silkworm Flower Lady's real body unveiling ceremony was held; traditional activities such as the arena boat, boat boxing and benchmark boat have been The State Sports General Administration lists it as a local special boxing type. Boat boxing is most famous for practicing Zhongjiadun boat boxing in Shizhen.
The Silkworm Flower Festival has added new items that combine folk customs of silkworm activities and folk customs tourism activities: such as "Carrying Silkworms" and "Drawing Silkworms" (Chailong - a symbol of silkworms spinning silkworms and spinning cocoons) (used), "drawing a rhombus bucket", "picking silkworm flowers", etc.
Since its inception, the Silkworm Flower Festival has been held for 10 times as of 2010. On this day, bicycles, motorcycles and cars were parked all around Hanshan.
Liu Shang Tomb
Visit the tomb to offer sacrifices and burn Chu ingots (Chu was cut from Bai Qian into mo ingots and pasted with gold and silver paper foil, which is called Mingzi. It is a relic of ancient Ming utensils. (meaning), the province's tomb areas were planted with grass, adding soil and hanging paper flags (called drifting white or calling the books to attract souls), and then returned to the Yuyan tribesmen (called Shangfen wine) - ("Lianxi Literature"). Visiting graves during the Qingming Festival is a major folk activity. People in the town have respected filial piety from generation to generation, and every family must pay homage to their ancestors during the Qingming Festival. On the Mange night of the Qingming Festival, meat and vegetable dishes are placed, chopsticks are placed, paper foils and Buddhist scriptures are burned, and a grand memorial ceremony is held. Tomb-sweeping Festival has three traditions: the first three days and the last four days. The whole family, old and young, brings offerings to the tombs and adds new soil to the ancestral tombs. This is called To "add soil", when local visitors visit the grave, they dig two basket-shaped soil blocks and stack them on the top of the grave. After the funeral reform, colored paper flags were hung on tombs (now pavilion-style tombs) or on tomb trees. All this is meant to show that the descendants have visited the graves of their deceased friends. There is a local folk song "Meng Jiangnu Misses Her Husband", the third verse of which is sung: "It is the Qingming Festival in March, the peach blossoms are red and the willows are green, it is spring, white paper is floating on other people's graves, but the graves of Meng Jiangnu are deserted", which is about Fan Fan. Xi Liang was forced to work hard to build the Great Wall and did not return home during the Qingming Festival.
In the old days, local officials and wealthy families built luxurious cemeteries. They chose hundreds of acres of land as "Feng Shui treasures" and hired people to help manage the cemetery all year round. The tomb owners also made "grave relatives" with them.
Seven White Tigers
Eat snails (called picking green snails, and sick silkworms called qingniang, so we hate them), and at night they scatter the shells on the house (called snails) To drive away white tigers); sprinkle lime in front of the door to make a bow and arrow shape (to drive away silkworms) - ("Lianxi Literature"). The dinner on Cold Food Day is called "Qingming Eve Dinner". There is a local proverb: "New Year's Eve dinner should be late, and Qingming Eve dinner should be early." Because there are many preparations after dinner (throwing snail shells, spreading lime, and having fist boats and white boats in the village need to be done before dinner). Eating snails for Qingming Eve dinner is called "picking young ladies"; after eating, scattering the shells on the roof is called "catching white tigers". It is also called the prevention of shingles (worms) from growing on eaves and rafters. A large frame is drawn with lime on the ground in front of the door, and weapons such as bows and arrows, broadswords, and halberds are drawn in the frame to ward off evil spirits and ensure safety. Nowadays, spreading lime during Qingming Festival has been abolished, but the custom of eating snails and spreading snail shells is still spread to this day.