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The Spring Festival in Memory
2008-05-03 18:24:14.0
The Spring Festival in Memory
My homevillage is a small mountain village , situated at the mouth of a valley ,containing seven or eight families .As a child , I grew up totally in poverty , no clothes warm enough against the cold of winter , or sufficient food ,not to mention meat ,fish and the like.Not until the Spring Festival ,the most important festival, did we have chance of satiating ourselves with delicious dishes , in addition to receiving a meagre sum of gift-money and not being requested to cut firewood or grass . So we children always looked forward to another almost just after celebrating one Spring Festival.
From around the 20th of the 12th lunar month to the Eve , adults were busy , killing pigs , chickens or ducks ,preparing damiguo--a kind of refreshments made of rice . Women ,even busier , besides helping men with those things , had to wash nearly all the clothes , quilts , as well as tables and benches in the home , even bowls and pots would be cleaned spotless , so that we would have a clean Spring Festival . They also busied themselves in making a variety of home-made food . The New Year's Eve was , according to adults , the most occupied day of the year as it was said that there are thirty things to do on the 3oth day . Early in the morning women would get up and begin the whole day's chores . To begin with they cooked a big pot of rice which was called "Spring Festival Rice ", and which must be sufficient for a family in the coming seven days or so , otherwise the following year would face a poor harvest . Then they boiled pork , the fragrance of which , permeating the whole house ,made us children so reluctant to walk away that mother would tear or cut some for us to relish ahead while it was still being boiled in the hot pot , which she was by no means so generous to do in normal times . After we ate to our hearts' content ,we used to help paste up New Year couplets which were indispensible . Their contents , in those days , were mostly about revolutionary slogans , bearing great political significance , now they have been replaced by
words of good wishes to embrace fortune and to avoid
misfortune .
Firecrackers always feature the Spring Festival even in the years of destitution ,popping firecrackers accompanied the Eve dinner and the action of closing or opening doors ,and our going out on the first day of the New Year . Remote and small as our home-village was , firecrackers kept rising and subsiding here and there , and would not stop until the first day afternoon .Since we children lacked means of recreation , letting off firecrackers was one of the most pleasant activities during those days .
On the first day of New year we were taught all along not to splash out our face-washing water , otherwise we would lose our money in this way or that in the coming year .So skeptical about this , we followed adults' instructions and held the dirty water carefully in a big basin . Then I was puzzled by the breakfast that never served meat and fish but vegetarian dishes which , I learned later ,show a respect to the Buddha. At last , words such as " Never say what is impropriate , never quarrel with your companions " were dinned into us .Now we could set off on the New Year's pleasant journey that we had looked forward to already . Children walked together one by one from their homes , looking at each other's new clothes , showing their received money to each other .Girls, wearing colourful clothes , also gathered to kick jianzi , a game only for girls .
Men , in the wake of children ,began to call on each other .Unlike us children ,they paid grave salute by bowing with their arms folded before ,that often made us feel funny and queer .Sometimes we went into someone's home , we were also requested to perform the formal ritual , just as adults did ,otherwise we would not be allowed different kinds of pastry and pie in aunts' hands . At last ,our awkwardness and flushing-up often made them laugh .
Naive and unsophisticated , ignorant of much hardship adults bore ,the Spring Festival was really enjoyable for children .Now I am an adult , a father ,too . With burdens on my shoulders,I feel less pleasant when celebrating the same Spring Festival .To me , it would rather mean a responsibility than a comfort . At this
time , I yearn all the more the Spring Festival in my memory of childhood .
2002,3
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