The origin of the wine festival

The Wine Festival is a unique traditional festival in Fuzhou, which falls on the 29th day of the first lunar month. Fuzhou folks call the ninth day of the first month "Shang Jiu", the 19th day "Zhong Jiu" and the 29th day "Hou Jiu", so it is also called "Hou Jiu Festival". There are two main theories about the origin of the festival:

One is a story from "Manglietia's Saving Mother", and the other is a folk saying of "Sending the Poor".

It is said that there was a man named Mulian in ancient times, and his mother was imprisoned in the underworld after her death. When he visited the prison, he often sent food to his mother, but all the food was eaten by the guards' children. Later, he thought of a way to mix water chestnut, peanuts, red dates, longan, brown sugar and other raw materials with glutinous rice, cook it into sweet porridge, put it in a bowl, and sprinkle a handful of black sesame seeds to his mother. Seeing that the porridge was black, the jailer asked, "What is this?" Manglietia casually replied, "This is dirty." (Fuzhou dialect homophonic "nine" and "dirty") The doorman believed it was true, thought it was dirty, and dared not eat it. Therefore, Ou Jiuzhou was given to Mu Lian's mother.

It happened to be the 29th day of the first month. In Fujian customs, the first month is divided into three September, the ninth day of the first month is called "serving wine", the 19th day is called "drinking wine", and the 29th day is called "porridge after drinking wine". Later, it was called "Europe Jiuzhou" because of its dark color, and "Little Jiuzhou" because of its filial piety to its mother.

The villagers admire and imitate Manglietia's filial piety. Cooking "porridge for cooking wine" on the 29th day of the first month every year, honoring the parents and elders in the neighborhood, following the custom, and deducing the folk custom of "porridge for cooking wine", which has been passed down to this day.

Legend has it that in ancient Zhuan Xu and Gaoxin, a son was born in a palace, and he was naked all day. The palace called him a "poor son" and he died in the dark of the next month (that is, the sixth day of the first month). After he was buried in the palace, he set a "poor day".

Xie Zeng, a scholar in Ming Dynasty, said: "The son of Levin, naked, died in the darkness of the first month, messing up the world, abandoning streets and alleys, and destroying the poor." In the Qing Dynasty, Lin Zutao also agreed with this point. He once wrote "Miscellaneous Fu at the Age of Middle Fujian": "According to legend, Chen Fang cooked different dates and hazelnuts in the ninth session. Sweep away the dust and throw it away, and send him a poor man to lose money. "

In the old days, the dark day of the first month of the lunar calendar was used as the day to send the poor, and it was changed to the 29th day of the first month in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In the early years, on the day of Aojiu Festival, there was a folk custom of sending the poor. On this day, every household in Fuzhou will clean up the rags and filth at home and throw them out as garbage.