Tomorrow is the 29th of the twelfth lunar month, which is also called "Little New Year’s Eve" because it is followed by New Year’s Eve. In the whole festival, this day can be said to be the busiest, because all kinds of preparatory activities for the Chinese New Year have to be finished on this day. In many families, the mother is the hardest worker during the Chinese New Year. If you can, take her hand, ask about the hardships she has endured alone, and ask about all her hopes for you … … Appreciate her years of hard work.
Vernacular customs
"Twenty-nine, steamed buns"
There are big and small months in the China lunar calendar. The so-called big month is 30 days, and the small month is only 29 days. Therefore, when the twelfth lunar month is a miscarriage, the twenty-ninth day is the last day of the year, so the twenty-ninth of the twelfth lunar month is New Year’s Eve. Even if it’s not a miscarriage, the next day is New Year’s Eve, so all kinds of preparatory activities for the Chinese New Year should be finished on this day.
In the whole festival, the 29th is the busiest day. In addition to preparing all kinds of food and clothing sacrifices in the New Year Festival, there is also an extremely important activity "going to the grave to ask for ancestors". Therefore, the annual rumor says, "Twenty-ninth day of the twelfth lunar month, please go to the grave and ask your ancestors to make a big contribution."
Folk songs are also called "Twenty-nine, steamed buns". On the 28th, the dough is ready, and the steamed bread will be started on the 29th. In the past, this steamed bread was very exquisite, not casually cooked, but carefully prepared and carefully worked, because the steamed bread was to be exchanged with neighbors on blind dates. Therefore, it must be made beautiful and delicious, which would be face-saving and auspicious.
The 29th of the twelfth lunar month is the day before New Year’s Eve, so it is also called "Little New Year’s Eve". In the old days, people would hold banquets on this day in case the younger generation came to bid farewell to their elders.
Remembering maternal love
Chinese New Year’s Mother
Author/Yan Lianke
I want to go home for the Spring Festival, which is an extraordinary happy event for my mother.
suddenlyIn the meantime, the soldiers have been doing it for fourteen years, and every time they meet the Chinese New Year, they miss going home. Write a letter from home in a hurry and tell my mother that I want to go home for the New Year, as if it were an extraordinary happy event. At this time, mother took the letter and went to find someone to read it. On the way back, everyone said that Lianke was coming back for the New Year, which seemed like an extraordinary happy event. Then, the plans for the Chinese New Year have all changed. More meat should be cut, steamed buns should be steamed, and the stuffing of flat food should be chopped.
When doing these things, my mother’s old illness was made, her eyes were astringent and painful, and all her bones and joints were broken by a knife. But her face is always full of smiles, and she hollows out to the station in the town, looking at the long-distance buses from Luoyang one by one. There are many cars, one after another; There were many people, too, and they crowded down one by one. Finally, she didn’t find her son, so she bowed her head and went home. The setting sun was pressing her back like a red-hot iron plate.
An acquaintance asked where he had gone. She said that the New Year was over, but she forgot to buy a pack of monosodium glutamate. The man also said that monosodium glutamate is not meat, and if it is less, it will be less. Mother said, how can my baby come back for the Spring Festival without MSG?
When I got home, my mother hastily prepared a night meal for people to eat. She was sore and sore, scooped up the meal, pushed the bowl down, and went to bed early. However, I didn’t sleep a wink all night, turning over in bed and waiting for the morning.
It was late again, so I just got up, went to the kitchen and carefully chopped the kitchen knife into a string of disturbing sounds. Chop chop, the chopping board was covered with light color, and my mother went to the town station again, thinking that I lived in Luoyang last night and would take the first bus home this morning … …
One car after another, one after another, guarding the station, waiting for my mother.
suchAfter three dynasties and five days, it really began to be busy. Mother wants to wash vegetables, cook the meat, make hair, clean the house, ask someone to write couplets, and go to the hillside to pick cypress branches. When she really can’t find time, she sends a group of children from her neighbors to wait at the station.
When the children no longer feel fresh, the mother can’t appoint them. The station was much deserted, and suddenly it seemed like a wilderness. But at this time, I took my children and my wife, got off the bus, stepped on the street that was replaced with cement, and excitedly crossed the street and returned home.
When I opened the door, my mother was busy in the kitchen with an apron, or peeling jade and ears in the yard to feed the chickens, or lying on the sewing machine to catch new clothes for people in the past year. No matter what you are busy with, the self-dyed earth-blue apron is always tied around your waist.
At this time, when I saw my wife and children, I was slightly stunned and came to hug her grandson. My face reflected a rare ruddy color, saying that you are busy outside and there are many people on the train. Don’t come back if you don’t come back. Who told you to hurry back for the New Year? Never come back next year!
I took my child and looked around, but I didn’t see my mother pick him up this year.
wifeNot a rural person, she received an education totally different from the rural culture all her life. Even compared with the city people like her, that education was very eccentric, so she was firmly out of tune with the rural culture and customs. Every time I go home, I plan to return to the sixth day, and she is anxious in the second day.
This year’s Spring Festival, I went back alone with my children, and wrote in advance, specifying the date: I will go home on the 30th of the twelfth lunar month, arrive in Luoyang at noon, and arrive in the town at half past noon. Everything is rare on time. When the coach bumped into the town, I asked the child, "What will you do when you see grandma?"
"Let grandma hold it."
"Say what?"
"Say hello to grandma, I miss you."
"What are you talking about?"
"I said that my mother couldn’t come back from work, and my mother asked me to say hello to my grandmother."
"What else?"
"Don’t want grandma’s lucky money for the New Year."
This is the town. As in previous years, there are tobacco and alcohol stalls, fruit stalls and fireworks stalls on both sides of the road in the town. The door of the shop is still open, as if it had not been closed for fourteen years. It’s close to the New Year’s Day, and all the shoppers have bought it, and the sellers are only waiting for the careless person who forgot to buy something to suddenly patronize. The street is a kind of cold and cheerless years ago. I think the adults are busy and the children are busy at home.
I pulled the child out of the car and looked around for it. Apart from the light of the sunset, it was the calmness of the vendors to receive the goods and the lonely chirping of sparrows in the trees at the intersection.
I can’t find my mother.
The child said, "Didn’t you say grandma would meet me at the station?"
I said, "Grandma is tired of taking it, so she won’t come."
The mother is old, her hair is mixed, and she can’t hold the child.
IHolding the child’s hand and carrying the luggage across the street. The luggage is extremely heavy, and it is all new year’s guest goods: wine, cigarettes, fruit candy, cakes, malt extract, canned food and children’s clothes that are small or out of date, but still new and wearable. I expected to meet an acquaintance and give me a lift, but I never met any villagers until I got home.
When I opened the door, my mother was around the apron, stirring the batter under the eaves. The child called grandma as scheduled, and the mother’s hand froze and looked up. When she wanted to laugh, she was positive and asked, are you and the child back? I said there is no holiday in the mother’s factory. The blush on my mother’s face disappeared. She slowly walked down the steps. I thought she was going to hold the baby, but she only came to touch the child’s head and said that she was getting taller and grandma was old, so she couldn’t hold it.
By this time, I really found that my mother was old and her hair was mixed. The child has really grown up, reaching his grandmother’s waist. I was frightened, as if the mother’s aging and the child’s growing up were all of a sudden after the mother spoke. Following my mother, I walked silently into the building, and the seven-step and eight-step road suddenly made me understand that I had finished my life for 33 years.
I said to my mother, "Why don’t you meet us at the station?"
Mother said, "I know when you will get home, so I can cook for you at home on time, so I don’t have to answer it."
As she spoke, the mother leaned close to her grandson and stirred the batter quickly on his head. She asked:
"Stay at home for a few days?"
I said, "After the fifteenth day of the first month."
She said, "Half a month?"
I said, "Sixteen days."
"You have been a soldier for more than ten years, and you have never lived at home for so long." Mother said this, and went to the kitchen. After a short time, she brought two bowls of egg noodle soup for me and my children to eat, and went to Ye Er to make a flat food. Next, I will help my mother paste couplets, insert cypress branches and set off firecrackers … …
The sound of firecrackers announced the official start of the New Year.
Mother is still busy, and the new year’s goods she bought are richer than any other year.
nightI stayed with my mother for the New Year with my sleeping child in my arms. My mother said many things in the village, saying that her daughter was married and her family gave him a TV set. It is said that if someone’s baby is admitted to college, and the family can’t afford it, it will not go up.
Finally, I talked about how seriously my aunt died, and who in the village had cancer just after forty. When I got here, my mother glanced at the portrait of my father on the table. I said, Mom, you are lonely at home alone. You might as well believe in Buddhism, Christianity and superstition. Together with others, you can go up the mountain to find God, burn incense in the temple, not to mention spending money, and it will be better to run back and forth.
Mother said, "I’ve tried everything. Those are all fake. I can’t believe them." Let’s not talk about it any more. The night is deep and dark, so they all sleep quietly.
Tomorrow, I will never get up early, put the first whip, first bring the next good jiaozi to the throne, and then bring another bowl to Niang’s bed. After eating, my mother went to sleep again, until the sun came up to the window, and then she got up and said that it was naive and good, and it was a good year.
On the first day of junior high school, my mother was still very busy, going in and out, constantly giving things I brought back to my neighbors, and when I came back, I kept wrapping a bag of neighbors’ things with my skirt, such as peanuts, walnuts and dried persimmons.
While my mother was away, I watched her New Year’s preparations, which were more abundant than any other year. There were two boxes of steamed buns, five pots of oil goods, and seven pieces of meat from relatives hanging in the air. I have four aunts and three uncles. I forget it. It will take me five to six days to walk through these relatives without stopping.
My mother sent me away and told me not to come back next year. The New Year is more lively outside than at home.
Available atAfter I took my children to the village to see some old people at night, my mother had emptied and filled my bag when I came back.
She said, "You can take the children away tomorrow."
I said, "Go? I took half a month off. "
Mother said you should go, and after the first day, the New Year will be over. Your daughter-in-law is outside, and you are leading the baby back. This is unreasonable. Your baby and your baby’s mother, you are the real family, and you can’t be separated during the New Year!
I said, "Don’t leave until after fifteen."
Mother said, "If you weren’t a dutiful son, you would have gone through fifteen."
Nothing to say all night. Tomorrow, my mother really got up and cooked breakfast, woke me up and the children to eat, and sent us to town with her luggage.
This year, it was my thirty-three Chinese New Year holidays, and I spent the shortest time at home. It was only a full day, and when I left, my mother confessed that I would not come back in the new year, and the New Year was more lively outside than at home.
