What are the local customs of Hengyang?

Hengyang is a charming place. According to evidence, our ancestors have been reclaiming and cultivating the land here for more than 5,000 years. The long-term life and labor have naturally formed its unique way of life and customs.

Hengyang folk attach great importance to traditional festivals, and still retain the Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, February 8, Qingming, Duanyang, July 30th, Mid-Autumn Festival, Chungyang, and New Year's Day festivals. The festivals have different contents and forms of expression.

The first day of the first month of the lunar calendar for the Spring Festival, the Spring Festival festival is the longest, from the first year of the lunar calendar on December 24, "small year" began to prepare, until the first month of the following year on the 15th, "Lantern Festival" is considered to be over. The Spring Festival is a celebration of the past year's harvest and good wishes for the coming year. This is one of the biggest festivals in the folklore, every family prepares good food and wine, and you come and go, **** with the blessing. From the Spring Festival to the Lantern Festival, there are dragon and lion dances to celebrate. Especially the "dragon" many varieties, there are seven clever dragons, cloth with dragons, straw dragons, bench dragons, pimple dragons, bamboo dragons, paper dragons, rolling dragons, incense dragons, cotton dragons and so on. The dragon and lion dance teams are strong and lively. Straight to a fifteen late at night, reflecting the lights of all the houses, before the end of the New Year. At the end of Song Dynasty, Wen Tianxiang was stationed in Hengyang during his official visit to Hunan Province. His heirloom masterpiece "on the Yuan Zhang Lantern", a vivid account of the Lantern Festival in Hengyang area Zhang Lantern, play lion and dragon, drums and songs of the spectacle.

"February 8", also known as the temple fair, the old farmers festival, which is a festival for farmers to buy and sell agricultural tools. On this day, the need to buy with the farmers will go to catch the "February 8", those craftsmen, merchants like the exhibition of homemade, self-managed agricultural tools in the market town on the street, allowing farmers to choose. Bamboo, wood and iron, diverse specifications, a full range of varieties, reasonable prices, fair trade, buying and selling. Both buyers and sellers will be happy, satisfied and return.

Qingming Festival is used to commemorate ancestors or revolutionary martyrs of a festival, the children and grandchildren prepared offerings to the grave to sacrifice, in order to show remembrance. Duanyang Festival on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar is said to be a festival in honor of Qu Yuan, the poet of the family. Duanyang Festival is a day of breakfast, drinking Xionghuang and Zhuzha wine, eating noodles and zongzi. In the morning, dragon boat races are held on the Xiangjiang River, Lei River, Steam Water and other rivers. The spectators shout for them, and the fun is endless. Mid-Autumn Festival on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, is the day of the full moon, but also the time of reunion on earth, it is often said that "every festive season doubly homesick". On this night, the whole family sat down to look at the moon, while drinking tea, eating moon cakes, eating glutinous rice pozi, while talking to each other, thinking of their loved ones far away, and until late at night Fangzhan.

The people of Hengyang love to watch and hear opera, so there are many kinds of local operas, which are also widely circulated. There are mainly flower-drum opera, Xiang opera, Qi opera, ground flower drum, puppetry, shadow play, ghost face play, fishing drum, silk string, ditty, lotus flower play, playing Lianxiang, playing money whip, cloth around the play, the one-horned opera, as well as the Yao people talk about laughing and so on. Hengyang Flower Drum Opera is one of the most popular types of opera among the public, with the "three little ones" as its strengths, namely, the little dancer, the little student and the little clown. It originated during the Shunzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, and was developed from the folk songs and dances of the original Hengshan's "Tea Casting Tune" and Hengyang's "Carriage Lanterns", etc. Due to the similarity of the voice and language, and the similarity of the places where they were passed down, they are collectively known as "Hengyang Flower Drum Opera "The opera was later gradually introduced to other parts of the province. Afterwards, it gradually flowed into other parts of the province, and in the 1983 edition of Chinese Drama. Hunan Volume", the popular flower-drum opera in southern Hunan is collectively called "Hengyang Flower-drum Opera". Xiang Opera is a kind of Hunan local opera, which flowed into our city from neighboring counties three hundred years ago, and gradually evolved into Hengyang Xiang Opera with Hengyang characteristics due to the influence of local dialects. Qidong Opera was born in Qidong, Qiyang (formerly a county) and named, the middle of the Ming Dynasty by the "Yiyang cavity" into Qidong, Qiyang, combined with local folk songs, thus giving birth to a new play - Qidong Opera.

These operas use the local dialect, singing and doing, with musical instruments, friendly and interesting, very popular with the masses. Flower Drum Opera "iron" has been poured into a record and played nationwide; Xiang Opera "Drunken Fight" in 1952, the first national theater observatory performance, the main actor won the first prize, "a song" Drunken Fight ", reputation in Beijing"!

Hengyang is also known as the "hometown of stories", myths, legends, fables, jokes are widely circulated in folklore, in various forms and with rich content. People in the after-dinner or field labor, with jokes, storytelling to amuse and relieve fatigue. Elders also storytelling, joke-telling as a "prize", awarded to those hard-working and obedient, serious about learning children. In recent years, the city has collected and organized the publication of "folk tales", collected more than 600 myths, which reflect the aesthetic interests of the working people from all aspects. These myths are full of magical fantasies, which are spontaneous and childish refractive reflections of the objective world at the early stage of human civilization. Legends and stories contain certain historical essence and are used to express the people's understanding and feelings towards certain people and events in history. For example, the myth of "Dayu Seeking the Golden Book of Simplicity", which expresses the positive and enterprising attitude in the face of difficulties; the legend of "The Beheading of the Guanbiao", which praises the uprightness of an official and his defiance of the powerful and the treacherous; and the story of "Crossing the Nine Sea Ridge", which praises the flesh-and-blood connection between a revolutionary leader and the masses of the people, and so on, reflect the people's "psychological expectations" from different perspectives. It's a well-known story in every household.

Folk songs and ballads are also the most popular and oral rap literature in Hengyang, involving a wide variety of content, labor songs, political songs, ceremonial songs, love songs, life songs, legend songs, children's songs, miscellaneous songs. Songs have sections and rhymes, simple and natural, friendly and beautiful, in the field work on the ground or at weddings and funerals, rituals and celebrations, with singing way to show, some songs are not only a kind of entertainment script, but also the working people to exchange feelings, spread the craft, sing the praises of goodness and scorn the ugly and evil a way. The lyrics of the Kiln Maker's Song in the Nine Workers and Eighteen Craftsmen's Songs: "The mud should be cooked, the water should be even, and the octagonal angles of the bricks should be clear. ......" Another example is the lyrics of the Ten Miles to Send a Lang, which reads: "Sending a groom to the One Mile Pavilion, I advise him to walk along hand in hand, and I am sure that my sister has parents who have a high hall, and it is hard for her to follow the groom. The sister has parents and a high hall, so it's hard for her to elope with the groom. Advise the groom not to spend money recklessly, accumulate money and save up rice so as to discuss ......" is an example. It is vivid and lively, popular, widely spread in the folklore.

"No spicy dishes", talking about the people of Hengyang's addiction to chili peppers. Hengyang people eat vegetables like salty and spicy, especially chili pepper is a necessary condiment for every household. Rural households planted, especially Qidong's "lantern pepper", Hengshan's "Chaotian yellow" has long been famous. The former for the vegetable pepper, spicy and sweet, thick and large; the latter body small but chili pepper strength, more for the spices with. Every fall, to be picked after the red pepper sun-dried, when eating crushed into the dish, often red bowl, so that outsiders are afraid. Hengdong food is salty, if you like to eat light food for the first time to be a guest, eating, need to give the host family beforehand to say hello, otherwise you have to and the host of the "salty with the enjoyment of the". Hennan and other places in rural food law and the city is the opposite, the morning, in the main meal, wine and food, and dinner is very casual, eat some noodles, rice on the line.

Hengyang folk around there are still different partiality. Changning people like to eat patties, Changning patties is to use glutinous rice punch shake and become, when eating, dipped in sugar, sesame, soybean powder and mixing ingredients, soft and sweet. Qidong people like to make fish into fish jelly to eat, and sometimes also with shark fins, gills, scales and other waste wash, add water and boil to a certain concentration of dregs, and then into the oil and salt, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, monosodium glutamate and other condiments, cooled into a gelatinous fish jelly, taste very fresh, is a famous local dish.