Liu Zi Folk Custom in Suixi, Huaibei, Anhui Province

Huaibei is a city with a long history and rich inside information. It belongs to the former site of Pei Jun, the old rule of Surabaya and the bosom friend of Huaihai. Huaibei, as an ancient city with a history of more than 4,000 years, is both ancient and youthful, both classical and modern.

The customs in Huaibei area are mainly manifested in three aspects, namely, marriage customs, diet customs and holiday customs.

First, marriage customs:

The marriage customs in Huaibei area are similar to those in northern Anhui. Contemporary Huaibei wedding customs have three characteristics: "thousands of miles of different customs", the combination of Chinese and western, the integration of ancient and modern, the coexistence of urban frugality and rural complexity, and the rich and colorful wedding customs. The specific performance is as follows:

1, betrothal: After the matchmaker proposes betrothal, if the personalities of men and women are not in conflict, they will exchange the genealogies of the two families as evidence of betrothal.

2. Gifts: Before marriage 15 to 20 days, the man chooses a good day and goes to his wife's house with gifts and various gifts.

3. Bed installation: A few days before the wedding, a good person moved the new bed to a suitable location. Then, before the wedding, a good woman is responsible for making the bed, putting mattresses, sheets and dragons and phoenixes on the bed, and taking out all kinds of happy fruits, such as red dates, longan, dried litchi, red mung beans and lily. After the bed is installed, no one is allowed to enter the new house and touch the new bed before the new couple enters the house on the wedding night.

4. Dowry: After the woman receives the gift, the dowry of the woman should also be sent to the man's house the day before the wedding. Dowry is a symbol of a woman's family status and wealth.

Ancestor worship: before going out to marry the bride, the man should worship his ancestors first, tell him that the marriage is settled and pray for blessing.

5. Wedding Ceremony: In recent years, the wedding ceremony (picking up the bride) has become the climax of the whole wedding. The bride is taken out by her sister or maid of honor, given to her father, and then given to the groom. The wedding procession had better be even.

6. Setting off firecrackers: On the way to the parade, the wedding car should set off firecrackers all the way to celebrate.

7. Eat the table: Before leaving, the bride should have dinner with her parents, brothers and sisters. When leaving, the bride usually looks sad, and everyone says something auspicious.

8. Waiting for the groom: At the door of the woman's house, there should be a boy waiting for the groom's limousine with a tea tray. After the groom gets off the bus and before entering the woman's house, he should reward the boy with a red envelope.

9. Farewell: Before leaving the bride's house, the bride bows to her parents, the father covers the veil and the groom bows.

10, limousine: When the bride's limousine is just started, her parents will sprinkle a bowl of water and a bowl of white rice behind the limousine. Clear water means that my daughter spilled water, and everything will not interfere in the future. White rice means to wish my daughter food and clothing, and all the best.

1 1, throwing a fan: After the car starts, the bride should throw the fan out of the window to show that she will not bring her bad temper to her husband's family, and the fan will be picked up by the bride's brother.

12. Pick up the bride: When the bride walks out of the limousine at the man's house, a blessed elder of the man should hold a bamboo curtain on the bride's head, lead her out of the limousine and help her into the hall.

13, avoid stepping on the threshold: the threshold represents the facade, and newcomers must cross the threshold.

14, ancestor worship: the couple will worship their ancestors first, and then the groom will take the bride into the new house.

15, Wedding Banquet: Chinese and Western weddings are popular now. Most couples entertain guests in the evening and hold ceremonies at the same time. At the wedding reception, they put on bridal gowns and put on evening gowns to toast each table.

16, seeing the guests off: After the wedding reception, the newlyweds should stand at the door to see them off, holding tea trays with cigarettes and candy in their hands.

17, into the bridal chamber: In order to have a boy in the future, put the bamboo curtain bronze mirror on the new bed. Eating sweet soup made of peanuts, black dates, lotus seeds and longan symbolizes early birth. On the wedding day, the bride can't lie down, otherwise she may be ill in bed all the year round.

Second, eating habits.

Huaibei is located in the northeast of Anhui Province, north of the Huaihe River line in Qinling Mountains, and belongs to the northern region. Eating habits are similar to those of northerners, and they prefer to eat pasta. Northern Anhui is a region that mainly produces wheat, corn, sorghum, sweet potatoes, beans and other miscellaneous grains, so pasta and miscellaneous grains are daily staple foods. Huaibei people are also good at processing pickled vegetables according to different seasons. For example, in Tomb-Sweeping Day, duck eggs were preserved in the long summer, bean paste and tofu were made in the rainy season, pickles and hot sauce were made after the Millennium, and winter vegetables were preserved in beginning of winter, and all kinds of bacon (meat, fish, chicken, duck, goose, etc. ) It was made in winter.

Third, holiday customs.

Spring Festival is commonly known as "Chinese New Year". Since the beginning of the twelfth lunar month, it has entered the preparation stage of the New Year. After the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, some foods related to festivals are made one after another, which is called "Running Year". Its main items are: steaming: steaming steamed bread, steamed buns, paper, chicken powder, rice flour meat, eight-treasure rice and so on. Deep-frying: fried dumplings, twisted seeds, hemp leaves, prickly heat, fish, peanuts, broad bean rice and so on. Cooking: stir-fried peanuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, watermelon seeds, etc. Roll: roll sesame chips, coarse candy, flour and rice. Pickling: Pickled chicken, duck, goose, fish, pork, duck eggs, wild vegetables, etc. Brewing: brew small medicinal liquor and rice wine by yourself, or exchange sorghum for sorghum wine in the brewing workshop. Halogen: braised pork, beef, mutton, chicken, duck, peanuts, tofu skin, etc. Freeze: freeze tofu, melon, pig's trotters, bone glue, etc.

1. Eat Laba porridge on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. Eight kinds of raw materials, such as japonica rice or glutinous rice, kelp silk and cowpea, were selected, and some Jiabao rice was used instead of Laba porridge. We should also put porridge on doorframes and fruit trees in order to wish the coming year fruitful and bumper harvest. Laba is a prelude to the Spring Festival. The local people said, "If you eat laba rice, everything will be fine. They will buy anything they see and do so for the next year. " It can be seen that they take eating Laba porridge (rice) as the starting point of the Spring Festival.

2. The 19th day of the twelfth lunar month is the day of dust removal, cleaning indoors and outdoors, and adding meals at night. In some places, tofu is also used to worship the "dust god".

3. Send stoves on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, and offer sacrifices to "Kitchen God" with coarse candy or sweet noodles at night. In the evening, the whole family will have dinner together, and the children will be given food such as barbecue candy to sacrifice to the stove. In some places, noodles are eaten at the altar. The prayer of the altar is: "bring more rice and a doll next year." On the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, it is a small year. We should bring back our ancestors, sacrifice them with three animals, and celebrate with New Year's Eve dinner.

4. On the 30th of the twelfth lunar month, have a reunion dinner at noon or in the evening. The dishes are extremely rich. We should taste all the "new year's goods", and the leftovers should be enough to eat many meals. It is a local saying that "there are a few pots left in the coming year, and the old grain will be exchanged for gold and silver in the coming year". Fish, chicken and jiaozi are indispensable meat dishes for the reunion dinner, which indicates "more than one year", "good luck" and "family reunion". The whole family, old and young, should eat some. In some places, such as Wuhe, it is forbidden to eat crispy rice on New Year's Eve.

5. On the first day of the first month, jiaozi, a vegetarian, took the meaning of "Mr. Zhou's Clean Year" to show the piety of the whole family. There is another saying: jiaozi who eats minced meat is in a daze for a year. After breakfast in the first day of junior high school, you should feed the animals with steamed bread, dumplings and other foods, saying, "Beat 1000, scold 10000, and eat at five o'clock." And judge the next year's harvest according to what animals eat. In Suxian area, on the first day of New Year's Day, the male parents have to cook their own meals, and the hostess does not cook. In some places, we eat jiaozi for three meals a day, get up before dawn, and the whole family eats a kind of big oil cake called "Reunion Steamed Bun".

6. The fifth day of the first month is also called "Breaking Five". Jiaozi, who wants to eat meat on this day, is called flat food. Eating noodles is said to be "filling holes" (that is, preventing diseases). As the saying goes: "Eat a flat meal on the fifth day, keep silent and don't breathe." Eating the flat food of whole grains on the tenth day of the first month is called "Shisheng". It means that after the Spring Festival, you should be prepared for spring ploughing, even if the land is like stone, food will grow.

On the fifteenth day of the first month of the Lantern Festival, the Lantern Festival will be held. Before and after the festival, lanterns are usually placed and Yuanxiao fruit is eaten at night. In some places, eating steamed stuffed buns symbolizes a bumper harvest. Also make a bean flour lamp with bean flour, and press 12 depressions around the lamp base, representing 12 months of a year. Cage steaming, according to the amount of water in each depression when opening the pet, predict the drought and flood in that year. In Suxian area, a panlong is also made of bean powder, with a depression pressed on the back, filled with sesame oil and built-in rush grass, and ignited until the oil is exhausted. According to local legend, since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, droughts and floods on both sides of the Huaihe River have been erratic, because the Dragon King made trouble, so symbolically burning oil and lighting lamps as a punishment. In some places, steamed noodles lamps mixed with soybean and wheat flour are made into the shapes of Jackie Chan, tiger and pig according to the zodiac of everyone in the family, and are lit at night. There is also a moon light for one year 12 months. It is said that the paper core is pressed in the lamp, lit with vegetable oil and placed by the door, yard and granary to prevent pests and diseases. Yuanxiao is also called "original food", which means that the food bought during the Spring Festival will be finished on this day.

8. February 2nd is the day when dragons look up. In Suxian County, every household will chop up the remaining "Panyou" pasta and cook soup on this day, and everyone will take a few mouthfuls, which means further punishment for Dawanyou. In some places, flour is made into various insect-shaped foods, which are cooked and eaten, which is called "eating insects". It is said that eating worms can reduce pests. In Fuyang area, pancakes and fried grains are eaten on this day. In some places, this day is regarded as the day of Dragon Boat Festival, praying that the Dragon will rain in time, bring good weather and good harvests. Don't eat rice from the bottom of the pot in the morning, for fear of burning longan. Before the sun comes out, draw a circle in the threshing floor or yard with blue gray, which is called "enclosure", which also means to wish a bumper harvest. Eating bean jelly, noodles dragon and popcorn in the morning and chewing whole grains means eating mouse eyes and bugs in the field.

9. In some places, children should be weighed on March 3rd, and the scales should be pulled out. I wish the children grow up quickly. On this day, children get extra food and good food.

10, eat zongzi, barley wine, mung bean cake and duck eggs during the Dragon Boat Festival. Some places also eat fried sugar cakes.

1 1, eating broilers and fresh fish in Lixin area in early June.

12, the sixth day of June is called "June 6". Put the flower thread tied to the child's hands and feet into the water or tie it to the live carp in the water. There will be a banquet at home to entertain relatives and friends.

13. On the day of squatting, every household in rural areas should drill a small jar of well water, add a small amount of minced garlic and drink some for everyone. It is said that it can prevent heatstroke, so it is called drinking cold.

14. On July 7th, the sixth festival, the sisters will cook seven dishes for the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl and have dinner for fun.

15, Mid-Autumn Festival generally eats round food such as moon cakes and steamed buns, and eats sunflower seeds. Meat dishes and wine should be added to dinner, and moon cakes and fruits should be used to worship the moon after dinner, which is called "Double Ninth Festival". Foods such as flour, jujube paste and sugar are steamed into Chongyang cakes in urban and rural areas. Some people put colored flags on cakes as gifts for relatives and friends.

16, beginning of winter made Fenjiu a holiday drink.