Who knows the folk customs of Xinghua?
I first saw the word "picking up ashes" in the seventh episode of A Dream of Red Mansions. Jiao cursed Jia Fu: "I'm going to the ancestral temple to cry for my father. I hope to give birth to these animals there now!" Every day, the family steals dogs and beats chickens, rakes ash, and keeps a brother-in-law at home. " .
In He Lixia, "collecting ashes", also called "crawling ashes", is a word to describe incest, which refers to incest between father-in-law and daughter-in-law, so it is also called "crawling ashes". Nowadays, the derogatory meaning of the word "collecting ashes" has gradually faded, and it is mostly used in joking occasions or weddings.
There are many legends about the card benefiting the public, and there are different opinions in different places. The first is Su Dongpo, and the second is Wang Anshi. One day at noon, Su Dongpo passed his daughter-in-law's window and saw her sleeping in the gauze curtain. Her daughter-in-law is young and beautiful, and her sleeping posture is lovely. Su Dongpo hesitated for a moment, pushed the door and went in. Just thinking about touching it before going to bed, his wife turned over. Su Dongpo hurried back to the door and wrote a sentence on the dusty table by the door: "There is a pipa in the satin account, so you can't catch it if you want to play it." After writing, hide aside and observe the daughter-in-law's movements. Daughter-in-law vaguely felt a figure in her sleep, got up and looked, and the door was pushed open. Seeing that someone left a poem on the dusty table, she understood at a glance that it was a poem left by her father-in-law, so she went on to say two sentences: "I would like to borrow a song from my father-in-law, and the dragon will leave my home for feng shui." Su Dongpo was very happy when he saw his daughter-in-law's poem. He came out of his hiding place. Unexpectedly, my son came back from outside. He quickly wiped the handwriting off the table with his sleeve. The son was surprised and asked, "What is Dad doing?" Su Dongpo replied, "I, I'm picking up ashes."
This story was widely circulated among the people and later evolved into a custom. When many people hold a wedding, in order to add to the lively atmosphere of the wedding, they force their father-in-law to wear a red robe with the words "grab the ash", a high hat, a face painted red, and a rake on his back, which also says "grab the ash". They asked the father-in-law to accompany the bride around the venue, and the mother-in-law should turn a blind eye at the back, and everyone attending the wedding should turn a blind eye.