Today is the 15th day of July. Perhaps today's children only know how to celebrate Halloween and beg for candy with grimaces, but they don't know that there was such a festival in China a long time ago, and it's even more interesting. Zhongyuan Festival is also a lively folk festival in old Beijing, commonly known as the "Ghost Festival". The folk will hold various religious rituals and worship ceremonies to comfort the souls of ancestors. For children living in old Beijing, this is a real carnival. They look forward to putting lotus leaf lamps, lotus lanterns, , wormwood lanterns, and watermelon lanterns on this day... Pan Gong, who is over 80 years old, is an old Beijing in the south city. He still remembers the interesting stories of his children celebrating the Zhongyuan Festival sixty or seventy years ago. In the old man's heart, those starry lights carry their childhood away...
This is the ghost of our Zhongyuan Festival. Let's listen to Mr. Pan telling the story of the Ghost Festival.
In the late 1940s, some customs of the Zhongyuan Festival were still preserved in Beijing. At that time, I was twelve or thirteen years old and was an enthusiastic participant. When talking about Zhongyuan Festival, we have to first talk about Baoying Temple. Baoying Temple is still in the fourth major hall and side courtyard, and is the second affiliated primary school of Xuanwu Normal University. According to literature records, it is said that Baoying Temple was a Tang temple, which was rebuilt during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty. Baoying Temple was changed to Shandong Dengzhou , Laizhou, and Jiaozhou Yiyuan. What is Yiyuan? It is equivalent to a funeral home that provides funeral services today. Yiyuan serves the yin and yang worlds. On July 15th, the "burning Dharma ship " is within the scope of responsibility, but in the eyes of children, it is a festival carnival.
Before the 15th July, Baoying Temple became lively because the children nearby came to see the Mofa boat. The paper-paste boat is the business project of Mingyi Shop. Aijia Mingyi Shop, at the north entrance of the Hutong, contracts this business every year. The boat about ten meters long is divided into several pieces, and the house cannot be turned away. The factory is the sidewalk. The children stared at each other since the start of work. After the mess, they moved the pieces and ran back and forth. After assembly, it was even more recruiting. During the day, the ship was placed under the east wall outside the door and became an exhibition item. Adults and children surrounded him. They couldn't see enough of the upper and lower parts inside and outside, and they could not finish talking.
The purpose of burning a boat is to save the wandering wild ghosts. The craftsmen in the Netherworld Store used sorghum stalks to build shelves and paste colorful paper or white paper. The bow of the boat is a tiger's head, and there are lotus leaves on the blue water waves. On the deck of the bow was a road-opening ghost, holding a steel fork, leaning out, as if aiming at the target, about to get out. Behind him is a pair of impermanent ghost , with a white robe and a white high hat. The one holding the mourning stick is white impermanent , also called living impermanent; the black robe and black high hat, holding the soul-catching card, and it says that you are here, and you are about to take you is black impermanent , also called death. Next to the Impermanence Ghost is the cabin, with a roll and a palace in the roof. The doors and windows can be opened and closed, and you can see the furnishings and characters inside. There is a mast hanging on the front of the palace. The Ullambana Club is on the front, and the Cihang Pudu is on the back. There are several sailors holding paddles on the decks on both sides and a helmman holding a rudder at the stern. The hull is not high, about one meter away. The characters on the ship are disproportionate, the ghosts in the road are bigger than humans, the ghosts in the impermanence are slightly smaller, the sailors and helmsman are only fifty or sixty centimeters high, and the people in the cabin are even smaller. In the middle of the night, the Dharma ship was moved to the edge of the Mengjiakeng. The monks surrounded the Dharma ship and knocked on the Dharma tools, recited Buddhist scriptures, and then lit them. People waited until the Dharma ship "the masts and oars were destroyed in ashes" and then gradually dissipated.
Zhongyuan Festival is a festival for children. During the day, we go to the "Bone Sending Site" and drill into the weeds that are no one high, find the right Artemisia 2, pull it down and carry it home, cut off the roots, chop off the branches near the roots, and tie it to the legs of the stool. We have become a "Christmas tree" that can stand. Each "branch" is wrapped with paper and paste a piece of incense, and the branches are wrapped with incense heads, and then the work is done.
At night, the children lit incense heads and held them in their hands, like holding stars. The rich buy lotus lanterns on the street, and the poor make them by themselves. Pull the pulp of the watermelon under both ends, fix a seat with candles under the wire, and install a beam that can be held on top, which is a watermelon lantern. Lotus leaves can be picked in the river, and they are sold on the street. Wax is inserted into the leaves, which is a lotus leaf lamp.The lights were ready, and I couldn't help but have dinner. When the black was wiped, I lit various styles of lights. The older boy held the wormwood lamp, and the younger boy carried the lotus lantern and the lotus leaf lamp, and set off with the wormwood. The older boy was of course the leader and guardian. This day, I was busy making lights and watching boats, and I was walking around Baoying Temple.
Mr. Yu Pingbo also left a text on the old Beijing Zhongyuan Festival: "No matter how fine the lotus lanterns are made on the night of the Zhongyuan Festival, they must be thrown away the next day, and it is unlucky to stay in the clouds. ...If the lotus lanterns sold at Dong'an Market at that time were colorful, exquisite, and drooping tassels. The price of which is very dome is only for fun overnight, and it is also one of the old customs and extravagances." Mr. Yu also quoted the poem by the Qing Dynasty poet Cha Chubai, "Thousands of red lights wrapped in green gauze, and the pavilion is light and slanted by the wind; the lotus leaves in the city are high for high prices, and there are no counts of handwashing flowers in the Central Plains. ... The price of lotus leaves is higher than that of Luoyang paper, and the prosperity of the nine cities at that time can be seen!"
Deng Yun Township Mr. Deng Yun Township specially described the artemisia lanterns of the Zhongyuan Festival in "Yanjing Township Records", "The green light is bright, like the phosphorus is on fire. The so-called "Kyoto Customs" In the dark, it is like thousands of fireflies, and ghost fires thousands of miles away can also be seen." Imagine what kind of fun should it be in the dark small courtyard, on the July night with the fragrance of night floating, under the eaves of the corridor, by the hanging flower door, or even in the remote alley? The fun lies in the "green fluorescence". If the light is shining with thousands of light lights, the light is as boring as the daytime, so where can we find the hazy beauty of lotus lanterns, lotus leaf lanterns, and artemisia lanterns?
Are these memories of Zhongyuan Festival alone people living in other places? Those who spend their childhood in Old Beijing are also happy memories that cannot be waived in their hearts.
