What are the customs of marriage in Fuzhou?

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Etiquette and Taboo of Fuzhou Traditional Banquet

Many customs and taboos in traditional banquets in Fuzhou are meaningful and not complicated, which can be achieved with a little attention. At present, many innovations have been made, and these customs and taboos can still be preserved.

Politeness in language: when guests come to the banquet, the host mostly says "excuse me, excuse me", and when guests celebrate their birthdays, they say "offer birthday wishes" with their fists, and say "health and longevity" in fashion; Other festive occasions say "congratulations", only the funeral banquet. Guests might as well express their grief silently, bow their heads and hold the host's hand, and at most say "take care", and a thousand words can be summed up in one sentence, even "silence is better than sound". At the banquet, the host advised him to say "Please think twice" and "Without good food, I was cheated by Nong" (I had to say "cheated" modestly because I received a red envelope from others); Guests say "eat well", not "eat up" (unlucky) or "full" (rude).

What to eat and what not to eat at the banquet: There must be a bowl of Taiping Yan for the birthday banquet and other wedding banquets in Fuzhou. Taipingyan is a big dish. When you serve a big dish, you have to set off firecrackers and wait for the host to propose a toast. Before that, you can't move chopsticks. If there are children who don't know the rules, adults will stop them. This is waiting to be eaten. Not eating is the last "whole fish". The whole fish has a head and a tail, with more symbols. Can I eat? If you don't eat it, it will be put away by the host as a "meal" (meal) in the later period of the festival or given to friends and relatives in the neighborhood.

It doesn't matter whether the dishes are important or not: wedding banquet and funeral banquet. After eating a dish, don't overlap the dishes, and don't weigh them when the staff comes to collect them. This is for fear of touching "heavy mourning" and "bigamy". In addition, most of the others can be heavy.

Appropriate and inappropriate dishes: pomfret can't be served at wedding banquets and "warm moon" banquets, and orange pomfret and braised pomfret are homophonic with "prostitution", so it is not appropriate. There must be a bowl of mutton at the funeral banquet, commonly known as "mutton buns". Because sheep know how to breastfeed and breastfeed on their knees, eating mutton shows filial piety.

"Take care of the milk" (mother) can't be "80": there is a swearing saying in Fuzhou that "take care of the milk 80", so it is either 79 years old or 8 1 year old to celebrate the mother's birthday; Even if I do it every year, I won't do it at the age of 80. Because eighty is homophonic with "straight" (death) in Fuzhou dialect, doing eighty means "straight".

Oktoberfest and February 2 nd

The 29th day of the first month is a unique traditional folk festival in Fuzhou. Aojiu Festival is also called Jiujiu Festival, Filial Piety Festival and Sending the Poor Festival. Early this morning, every household uses glutinous rice, brown sugar, peanuts, red dates, water chestnut, sesame seeds, longan and other raw materials to cook sweet porridge, which is called "lotus root wine porridge" to worship ancestors or give gifts to relatives and friends. Married daughters are also given a bowl of "Nine Porridges", and some even add too flat noodles, eggs, trotters and so on. And send them back to their parents to honor their parents. Besides, anyone who is nine years old, such as nine or twenty-nine (called "Ming Jiu") or multiples of nine, such as eighteen, twenty-seven and thirty-six (called "Dark Jiu"), must eat a bowl of "Taiping" just like a birthday, so as to achieve peace and health. In the traditional concept of Fuzhou people, "nine" is hard. Fuzhou people feel guilty about every nine days and think that "nine" is a difficult time. Therefore, anyone who meets the age of "Nine" should eat a little flat, and the married daughter should also give "Nine" to her parents to ensure their safety and health.

Three days after the "Aojiu Festival", it is the second day of the second month of the lunar calendar, and it is also a legendary festival unique to Fuzhou, referred to as "February 2". On February 2nd, people in Fuzhou ate salty porridge instead of sugar porridge. Salty porridge is a salty porridge made of glutinous rice, celery, onion, garlic, shrimp, oysters and shredded pork. After February 2, ordinary people began to live on bread and water. Since February 2 comes from cleaning and cooking the food left over from the first month, some people do it if they have surplus food, and don't do it if they don't. February 2 carried forward the traditional virtues of Fuzhou people, such as not extravagance and waste, diligence and housekeeping.

New Year's Eve "Debt Avoidance Drama"

In the past, Fuzhou folk troupe had a traditional custom of class rules, that is, it was required to "seal the box" (that is, seal the box with red paper) from December 23 of the lunar calendar every year, indicating that members of the troupe would go home for the New Year on holiday and would not officially start until the first day of the first month of the following year.

On the stage of Wanshou Shangshu Temple, an ancient building in Wuwei, Taijiang, Fuzhou, gongs and drums are loud every New Year's Eve. In ancient times, Taijiang had developed commerce and trade, and the wealth was uneven. Rich people's New Year's Eve is a feast. Poor families are most afraid of the arrival of the new year, and creditors are forced to pay debts. Some philanthropists, out of sympathy and fund-raising, hired Fujian Drama Club with high salary, made an exception and performed in Wanshou Shangshu Temple on New Year's Eve, and stipulated that they would stay up all night to let poor debtors gather in the temple to watch the play. If creditors enter the temple that night to force debts, it will be difficult to find people because of the large number of people, and secondly, they will be bombarded by the poor. Therefore, the New Year's performance of Wanshou Shangshu Temple is free for the poor, commonly known as "debt avoidance drama". At dawn the next day, it is the first day of the first month, so it is the Spring Festival, so it is not convenient for creditors to ask the poor for money, otherwise they will feel unlucky.

Folk funeral custom in Fuzhou

Fuzhou had a set of unwritten funeral regulations in its early years, which have continued to this day. Today, many of them have been gradually innovated and simplified, but there are still traces.

There are seven things to do when people die. Every seven days is called17,7749 days. Every 17 days, a Taoist priest should be invited to do the Dojo, or a monk and nun should be invited to recite the scriptures and set up a table in front of the spirit. Every morning and evening, soup and rice are sung.

Secondly, after the death of parents, men should mourn. In ancient times, it was said that when a father died, he was lonely, when his mother died, he was sad, and when his parents died, he was lonely. It is very embarrassing in mourning, so there is an ironic saying in Fuzhou called "it's really like a soliton", which is what it means.

People who live on a long life die, and there are rules for posting vegetarian posts (that is, obituaries) and corporate "screens". They call themselves "unfilial people" in simple posts and screens. In Dai Xiao, it usually begins on the seventh day, which is called "filial piety". Before going to filial piety, men should get a haircut and shave, otherwise they can't get a haircut until 7: 00 on July 49. Filial piety men wear linen sandals, tied with a straw rope around their waist, and hung two cotton balls on their linen hats. When buried, the filial piety man should hold a "filial piety stick", which is three feet long and made of white paper. The dutiful son sticks, the father dies with a stick, and the mother dies with a bamboo pole. This is the so-called "Chai Niang Ba (father), Zhu Niang Milk (mother)".

"do half a paragraph"

Villages in the suburbs of Fuzhou have already had a customary village celebration activity-doing half a paragraph. Most of the village's celebrations are held in the slack season after the summer harvest or the autumn harvest, all of which are held after July of the lunar calendar. Village Celebration Day is just half past the Lunar New Year, and this year has passed the "half stage", so the village celebration activity is called "doing half stage". Neighboring villages are staggered for half a day, once a year in each village, so that villages can invite each other, the celebrations in the villages will continue, and the festive atmosphere will be lively and lasting.

The villagers attach great importance to holding half a festival. In order to make the celebration in the village grand and decent, they prepared the banquet in the first half of the year, fattened chickens, ducks and pigs and brewed rice wine. When we meet on the road, we always remind each other or tell each other that the children in the village are eager to try.

At that time, the whole village will be immersed in a happy atmosphere, and the sound of boxing and drinking will come and go. Relatives and friends get together to talk about family and friendship. At the banquet, we will talk about business or Sang Ma, celebrate the bumper harvest of crops and the prosperity of six livestock, plan the spring ploughing in the coming year, and look forward to the good weather and peace and prosperity in the coming year. After a few rounds of wine, the bright moon is in the sky, guests are full of food and drink, and guests from afar stay overnight.

Please go back to the door to "pinch vegetables"

After the woman gets married, she will send the bride's brother, nephew and other people to the man's house the next day or the third day to "please call back". At this time, the bride and groom will walk together under the guidance of the younger generation representatives. If the families of the two sides are far apart, they should take a sedan chair, carry a bag, ride a bike or take a boat. The transportation is convenient now, so take the bus.

Please go back to the ancient name of mother. Those who have only been here for one day and return to their husband's house that night are called "please catch candles" and will return to their husband's house in the middle of the night. If the journey is long, or the scene of the bride's family is lively, you can stay for three to five days, not only to meet relatives and friends of the bride's family, but also to make fun of the groom (commonly known as his uncle and brother-in-law) in the lively scene. As a new son-in-law, you must be polite and civilized, and be tactfully correct, so as not to fall into the "trap" of conspiracy calculation and be punished and teased. Any mistake will be punished (fined). From a single fine, bought a gift cake, etc. To the relatives and friends present, call it a small "pinch of vegetables"; After receiving a few fines, they held a banquet to invite relatives and friends to be present. This is called "pinch of vegetables", and the parents-in-law intervened excessively, as long as they did not belong to the new son-in-law who was mentally retarded or made a fool of himself.

Tomb-Sweeping Day and Bo Guo Bo

Every year around Tomb-Sweeping Day, every family in Fuzhou will go to the suburbs for a walk to sweep the grave and press paper for their ancestors. Grave sweeping is mainly for weeding and repairing the graves of ancestors. Some people will plant an evergreen pine and cypress or other trees next to the graves. The last procedure of sweeping the grave is to press paper, that is, to press some money paper on the head of the tomb to show that the tomb has been swept by future generations, or to show passers-by that there are future generations sleeping here.

After sweeping the grave, we must break the pine branches and put them in front of the house to show people that our family has fulfilled the responsibility of sweeping the grave for our ancestors. The offerings for sweeping graves are not complicated, only light cakes, tofu and cakes, but there is a main flavor that is absolutely indispensable, that is, Bo Guo Bo, also known as Qingming Pot, which is unique to Fuzhou. Before and after Tomb-Sweeping Day, every household in Fuzhou had to make spinach buns. Now, the "Mi's" shop on the street also sells a lot of spinach buns.

Pineapple and spinach (an edible wild vegetable grown in the south, sweet and cool, mashed and squeezed into turquoise juice) are squeezed into juice, infiltrated into rice pulp, kneaded into shells, and kneaded into balls with jujube paste, bean paste and shredded radish. The shape is relatively simple. The turquoise color of spinach gives pineapple and spinach a unique flavor. Spinach is a good snack on the way home from the grave.

In the first month, the countryside welcomed the gods.

Worship to God is a custom activity held in the first month in rural Fuzhou, which has Taoist color. From the third day to the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, it is a wandering time, and it has also become one of the important activities of "making the year" (Spring Festival) in rural areas. Wandering gods often take villages as units, and sometimes several villages meet together. They carried the statues of local gods in open-top sedan chairs, supported by people respectively, and marched in groups in the village amid the sound of gongs and drums and firecrackers. The people watched and greeted, and the scene was warm.

Fifteen yuan midnight snack, the activity of worshipping and welcoming God reached its climax. The Lord God was already sitting on the throne, and several little gods who were led into the temple were led by young people, vying to run into the temple from fields miles away. The first one will get the most blessings. When all the gods were seated in the temple, fireworks and drums were deafening in front of the temple until late at night.

In the early years, there were many activities to welcome the gods in Fuzhou, such as welcoming Master Yanwu, Mount Tai, the Town God and Shangshu. Therefore, this kind of activity has a strong color of feudal superstition and gradually fades away. Only the wandering gods known as "Welcome the New Year" during the Spring Festival can still see it.

Send three Dan full moon wine.

When boys and girls are born, grandparents have to "send three denier". "Send three denier" means giving birth for three days, which is designated as "Three Dynasties to Wash Children" Day. As a family member, we will give pregnant women gifts such as chicken, noodles, eggs, glutinous rice and brown sugar for breastfeeding and parenting. Some parents are well-off, and they also give longan, sheep, ducks and children clothes, coats, quilts, blankets and so on. There are even gold and silver ornaments and wedding gifts. The relatives of the bride's family also have a "peace ceremony", usually chicken noodles or peace, and generous gifts are also given to high-end things. These are concentrated in the mother's house, and on the third day after delivery, someone carries or drives. Most of the "three-denier gifts" were picked by maternal brothers and nephews, and some places were given by grandma. Fuzhou people attach great importance to postpartum aftercare. They should eat several chickens, noodles or glutinous rice for three meals, and avoid eating seafood and other things. In order to nurse, they should protect their health. When the baby is one month old, Jia Xi will treat him to "full moon wine". Everyone had a drink together. After drinking the wine, the guests all looked at the baby separately and presented "next month's celebration" red envelopes. This is a courtesy. If you accept someone else's, you have to pay back when you have a child.

At present, childbirth is mostly treated in the obstetrics and gynecology department of the hospital, and the custom of "sending three denier" is not popular, and it is mostly changed to "sending a full moon". At this time, all relatives "give peace" and get together to drink full moon wine to celebrate the first time. In this way, the tedious things were finished in one day.

Solstice in Winter and "Meal Time"

The winter solstice is one of the 24 solar terms, but it is usually called the winter festival in Fuzhou. In the old days, on the eve of this festival, people got together and had a "meal time" in front of the ancestral tablets. "Meal time" is to mix rice and glutinous rice according to a certain proportion, grind them into pulp, press them into semi-dry, knead the dough, cook them, and eat them with bean flour and sugar outside. When Fuzhou people rub rice, there are bamboo baskets on the table. There are several red oranges, a pair of red chopsticks and a pair of paper flowers in the basket. Rubbing "meal time" is also called "rubbing round", which means reunion; "Rice market" symbolizes "transshipment". The family sat around the round table and sang while rubbing "meal time". Many lyrics have the meaning of harmony, increasing happiness and prolonging life.