Hometown Customs of Rice-planting Song

The umbrella-head rice-planting song of our hometown has a long history and is highly popular. Almost all villages, old and young, are expert in the art. Before cell phones and televisions became popular, from the afternoon of the first day of the Lunar New Year, when you climbed up a hill, you could hear gongs and drums from near and far.

A rice-planting team must have at least a drum team, a waist-drum team, an umbrella leader, a flower-player and a small program team. The team is directed by the head of the umbrella, and the gongs and drums give the orders.

After eating dumplings at noon on the first day of the Lunar New Year, young people who like to have a good time will get together to discuss the matter of rice-planting songs. If you are willing to spend a few days to enliven the lives of the villagers and create harmony in the village, and if someone is willing to run the errands, they will follow each other to the village cadres to discuss the matter. If the village cadres feel that the person in charge is reliable, they will agree to set up a rice-planting team as long as they are invited to the head of the umbrella.

So, a few of them would carry wine jugs and good cigarettes, and go to the door to invite the village's rice-planting song masters. These people would push back a bit at first, and then the master of ceremonies would praise them for a while, saying how talented, prestigious, and enthusiastic they were, all the while handing out cigarettes and pouring wine. Then the person invited inquired in passing about their plans and practices, and then agreed.

After inviting the umbrella head, they started to inform the villagers while picking up all the props needed for the rice-planting team. By the time some of the activists who had long been itching to get their hands dirty arrived, it was time to start banging gongs and drums and patting shovels and shovels. After the arrival of the head of the umbrella, put the umbrella, whistle, this rice-planting team on the grass-created molding.

When the villagers are almost here, the chief will ask the village cadres to say a few words, announce the establishment of the rice-planting team, notify the discipline of these days, announce the person in charge of each constituent sub-team, and distribute and collect the relevant props. After that, they will take their positions, sing a few impromptu rice-planting songs at the head of the umbrella, pay their respects to the villagers, and make arrangements for all aspects of the event. Our rice-planting song here is generally a four lines around a center, sentence rhymes, catchy, elegant and vulgar **** appreciation.

Over the next few days, we went from house to house during the day to pay our respects; and at night, each group trained newcomers and rehearsed new moves.

When the village is willing to let the rice-planting team go to the courtyard to send lively and joyful are finished next to each other, it will be discussed to go out of the village.

Out of the village rice-planting songs, not only to show the level of village rice-planting songs, the spirit of the villagers, but also to enhance the friendship between the village.

There are a series of procedures and rituals for a rice-planting team to go out to a village.

First of all, there is the delivery of the rice-planting songs. According to the number of people in their village and the level of their own team, they will identify a target village in the neighboring villages. In the evening, a village cadre and a person who has contact with the target village committee are sent to deliver the post. After delivering the post, they would go home and convey the message. In those days, the village "went out by walking, communication by roaring", send the posters on foot, walking back, sometimes a night run on several villages hundreds of miles in order to send down.

After breakfast the next day, the village can go out of the door, willing to go, can go, some of the backbone is a must.

The rice-planting team arrived at the village of others, that side to find the umbrella head to meet, divided into the village entrance, the village, the site to receive three times, each time the umbrella head of the two families have to sing, the host family asked, the guest family replied. Singing requires courtesy, discipline and talent. This process is also the most obvious umbrella head strength level of time.

The rice-planting teams start from the edge of the village to the others, and then they are twisted in a line.

The front is two tiger-backed Hercules carrying the door flag with "XX village rice-planting team" written on it; followed by the mighty colorful flag team, seven-color flags hunting in the wind.

Then down is the gong and drum team, the drummer swings his arm round, lifts the drumstick high, and smashes it hard against the drum surface, making a drum sound like muffled thunder, he wants to make sure that the rice-antique team can hear the drum sound from the beginning to the end, and can step on the drums to show off their skills, and the cymbal clappers and the gong players are all in tune with the rhythm, and they are all wide open to perform their hearts out; behind the drum and gong team is the drum team, with dozens of players divided into two to four columns, which are set up all over the road, and in tune with the drum beat, and neatly organized. And drums, neatly shaking their heads, swinging their arms, jumping, flipping, tassels flying on their heads, their feet leaping and moving, like a tiger going down the mountain like a mighty open road.

And then down is the chest wearing saffron, wearing a windbreaker to a small umbrella turned like a windmill floating head of the umbrella, from a distance, as they raise the umbrella arm of the put and take, up and down the top of the umbrella flying like the water undulation of the dragon's head.

Behind the umbrella head followed by pulling the flower then, their left hand pinch in the waist wrapped around the end of a round of colored silk, the right hand holding a flower fan, stepping on the drums, and with the oboe's rhythm, twisting the graceful body, dancing, colored silk flying, flower fan fluttering, like a piece of butterfly in a sea of flowers swaying in the wind, fluttering.

Finally, it is a small program group, in which there is a person pretending to be the Duke of Zhou back Zhou, the Tang Monk and his disciples to go to the West to fetch the scriptures, there are on the eight holes of the gods and goddesses, there are sitting in a dry boat, there are pulling a donkey to call the in-laws, one by one, naive and silly, the appearance of shaking all, attracted bursts of laughter.

After receiving the venue, the rice-planting team first lively assembly is, that is, all the people in the field twisted rice-planting song, umbrella head of the umbrella turned to whoosh sound, tiger lining or whistle more loud and incessant, drums and gongs team is also beating the gongs and drums, all the team members, in high spirits, the fan tassel, up and down to fly. This link we call pick big rows.

There are many different patterns of the big rows, the simple ones are four door pockets, four outside the eight, etc.; the moderately difficult ones are the snake coiled with nine eggs, the octagonal building, etc.; and the difficult ones are the twelve sets of octagonal sets in the city. The big platoon is the best test of the overall level of the rice-planting team, the umbrella head can pick the right pattern according to the characteristics of the venue, the players can implement the umbrella head's meaning to ensure that the process of twisting the rice-planting song does not go out of shape and not change, know how to know the business of the first time to see it.

The next step is to pad the field. All the members of the rice-planting team walk in a circle with their heads and tails together, a pair of people at a time, one playing the waist drum, and one pulling the flowers. They are in the circle according to the number of people, twisting different patterns, a pair of garlic braids, two pairs of shear pants, three pairs of three ring sets, four pairs of four door pockets, five pairs of five-pointed star ...... until the entry into the eight pairs, and then gradually walk into the inside and outside of two small circles, then began to sing rice-planting songs, almost one person a, the content is mostly praise the village The content is mostly about praising the village's affluence, favorable conditions, people's warmth and happy life.

Ten times, it's time to eat. The village officials will assign all the members of the rice-planting team to villagers' homes for dinner. Before the assignment, an umbrella leader will sing out in rice-planting songs the etiquette to be observed during the meal, including patting away the dirt on the body before entering, greeting the host after entering, not picking the chopsticks and bowls during the meal, and hurrying to come back here after the meal is finished.

After the players finished eating, there was another big row, padding the field, and then the umbrella head hosted and performed a small program, the street lamps were lit up, and when the moon rose, this village lit up the horse lamps, ready to send the rice-planting team home.

The program of sending is similar to that of receiving, but it is "three receiving and two sending". At the first send-off (where the rice-planting team performs), the head of the host family's umbrella sings to thank the rice-planting team for passing on their experience and apologizing for the lack of hospitality; the head of the guest family's umbrella sings to thank them for the hospitality and regrets that the rice-planting team is limited in its level of performance. At the second sending off (outside the village entrance), the host family sings that the road is difficult to travel, pay attention to safety, and the horse lanterns escort them home safely; the Hakka family sings that they have been harassed and troubled all day long, and look forward to coming back early next year. Then the guest family umbrella head on the ground to play the horse lantern sings two thank-you rice-planting song, the hosts and guests parted, each back to their respective villages.

The village rice-planting songs can strengthen inter-village communication, enhance the friendship between the two villages, and even lead to the marriage of young people from the two villages, thus creating a permanent relationship.

Generally, they go out for a day, pay a visit to the township government offices and schools, and then come back to the village for a day or two before they are finished. Because some people have to go to visit relatives, some people have to go to work, many people are also tired and choked. But there are exceptions, one year our village rice-planting team went out of the village until the night of the 15th day of the first month to come back in the mountains to pay homage to the mountain gods and land, and only then ended.

In those days, in addition to a box of cigarettes for the parachute head, the rest of the people could smoke a few cigarettes at most when they were given to all the players. But everyone did their best, without complaint.

A few days of rice-planting songs down, the elderly smile, not only do not have to go out of the village to watch the red-hot hustle and bustle, but also to see their own children and even grandchildren of the wonderful performance, feel the face of a great increase. The children are happy, the village once the rice-planting song, there will be relatives to watch, once they come to send years of money, and will come to sell food and play things vendors.

Boys and girls are happy to have the opportunity to see and be seen, and the chances of meeting their sweethearts are greatly increased. Middle-aged people, especially middle-aged women are more happy, her family, that the knife, a meal to the poker place to drill, and sometimes do not go back at night, angry, just New Year's Eve, not angry, he gave the child ready to lose tuition fees. Now good ah, a meal to the activities of the venue to go, save compost, more happy.

Simple rice-planting activities, enriching the cultural life of the villagers, active atmosphere in the village, harmonizing the relationship between the parties, emerging a variety of talents, cohesion of a village spirit, leaving many good memories.